I have two nephews, one is seven years old and one is four years old and as a way of getting them into reading I will take them to the comic book store and let them choose a comic book. I take my nieces too, but this story is mostly about my four year old nephew that we’ll just call “Jay” As soon as we arrived at the store “Jay” heads straight towards the toys, many of which are collector toys, so they are priced much higher than if you were to shop at Toys R Us or any other place.

“I want this.” My four year old nephew says as he grabs a boxed set of Justice League figures.

“We’re not buying toys,” I try to take the set of figures away from him but he hold on to them tightly. “You can buy a comic, but not a toy.”

“Grandma lets me buy toys.” He says.

“Yeah…well, grandma is not here and I’m not buying a toy.”

“Grandma said I could buy a toy.” I’m looking at my nephew thinking that maybe he’s not really a four year old after all, maybe he’s a midget acting like a four year old.

“Ok, but not today, today we buy comic books. It’s a comic book buying trip.”

He held the toy tighter, “but I want it!”

“I’m sorry” I said taking the toy from him, “we’re not buying this right now.” My nephew then did the unexpected, he ripped the top of the box. I looked around the store to make sure no one saw him do that and then I took the box and placed it behind the other boxes - there was no way he was going to get it now. I pulled my nephew away from the toys and lead him to the comic books on the wall racks. “Pick one of these” I said pointing to the little kid comics.

He reached his hand out to choose a comic book and I couldn’t help but think that in the whole scheme of things it hadn’t been too hard to get him to choose the comic book. I was wrong, instead of choosing a comic my nephew ran. He ran with his hand outstretched, knocking comics off the wall rack as he did. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and The Hulk - it didn’t matter if they were DC or Marvel comics… all the superheroes fell

It was at this point that I seriously wondered how mad my brother would be if I left my nephew at the store and called him to go pick him later, after I had escaped. I picked up the comics and decided that maybe it was time for us to go home. I’m sure the employees were wondering when I was going to leave. As we got ready to go my older nephew said he was thirsty and wanted a drink. The comic book store has a cooler with drinks so I agreed and asked “Jay” if he wanted to drink something.

“Jay” looked at the cooler and said, “I want that.” He pointed to the bottled Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino drinks.

Ha! He was sadly mistaken if he thought he was going to get one of those drinks. It was bad enough without all that caffeine and sugar in his system - if he had a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino in his system I would have jumped in my car and driven as far East as I could and I would have said a prayer for Las Vegas as I left.

“You can’t have one of those.” I told him.

“Why?” He asked looking at me with an innocent look.

“Because that’s a drink for big people.”

“I’m big.“ My nephew stood up as tall as he could. “See.”

I tried not laugh as he stood on his toes to make himself look even bigger. “It’s for grown-ups.”

My other nephew came to my rescue, “how about we get Gatorade?”

“Yeah!” Jay jumped up and down. “I want Gatorade.”

The girl at the counter asked, “which one would you like?”

My nephew answered, “I want the green one.”

The counter girl said, “I’m sorry baby we only have red, orange, or yellow.”

My nephew thought for a moment. He placed his fingers on his chin and looked up at the drinks. “Hummm…I’ll have the green one.”

The guy at the other register was laughing as all this was happening. The counter girl smiled at my nephew and repeated, “I’m sorry we only have red, orange, or yellow.”

“Ok”, my nephew said, stopping to think for a few seconds before saying, “I think I’ll have the green one.”

My older nephew came to the rescue again, “how about we get the red one?”

“Jay” started jumping up and down, ”Yeah! I want the red one! I want the red one!”

To the relief of the counter girl I paid for the drinks and we left. “You know, next time you come you’ll have to come with your dad ‘cause you’re banned from the comic book store.” I told my nephew as he spilled red Gatorade on the seat of my car.