Hi everyone! Debbie here again. Karen has given me the opportunity to send you another message. After Houston, we headed to Commerce, Ga., to participate in the AMA Drag Bike race scheduled for this past weekend, however Mother Nature had another plan for us.

After driving in rain for about two days and then sitting in rain all day Saturday, the AMA Drag Bike officials decided to run the race on an eighth-mile program for safety issues. We made the tough decision, along with a few other riders, not to participate so that left Karen and me to have fun promoting our sponsor Geico. We put up our friendly Gecko and started handing out all sorts of free items. Karen did autographs as I enjoyed the fans.

One of my favorite things about racing is the kids. Karen and I don’t have children, but we both have a huge dose of “need to mother” which we try to put to good use whenever we can.

As you can see from the attached pictures, we have a great group of kids both in Houston and in Commerce. The one picture of the brother and sister was taken in Houston and true to form; rbother was not happy being with all those girls! Our little girl in pink with the Gecko was enjoying some of the wonderful boiled peanuts from the racetrack. She like the Cajun hot ones! Go figure!

It was early afternoon and Karen had lots of people waiting for autographs, when I noticed one very polite young man who was waiting to talk to Karen. When his turn finally came he discussed with Karen the price of a die cast. Karen said, “Well, you will have to talk to Debbie about coming down on the price, because Doug gave you a good deal and if you want to negotiate you need to do it with the owners.”

The young man then told Karen how much money he had toward the die cast, which was about $10 short of the amount needed. He said that was the best he could do. Now here is where Karen’s motherly instincts kick in. She said, “Oh, you can make that; just go around the pits and ask people or vendors if there is any work you can do for them to earn the money! Right, Debbie?”

Now my motherly instincts kick in and I can see that we have an opportunity to direct this young man in a “very important life lesson,” which would be “earning those things which you want out of life.” I knew that if we held to the basic principles this young man would look lovingly at his Karen Stoffer diecast and tells his son, “I earned the money to buy this when I was a boy and it made a huge difference in my life!” Boy, was I on overload! I quickly agreed with Karen and said to our new project, “Yes, that’s right! We’ll be here late. You work hard and come back with ALL THE MONEY!” HA!

Well, as the day progressed, other racers came to us and offered to buy the diecast for this young man because he really was a good kid. Oh great, probably the only life lesson that he will remember is how mean we were for being so firm on our price. I have to say to all you “real parents” out there that days like these let me know how hard it is to make the important decisions that you make. I began to develop the guilt-ridden feelings that I know all of you have when you make your kids “earn” things! Boy. what a lot of pressure.

I couldn’t stand it. Five o’clock rolled around and our project child had not returned. I had not gotten his name and did not know where he was pitted. So I began to walk around looking for him. I found him standing with a group of racers and I asked how much closer he was to the total price. He said, “I only have $20.” I said, “What happened to all the rest of the money you said you had?” With a brief shrug of the shoulders, which said “whatever,” my motherly instincts kicked in and I let him know that he would have to come up with the total amount. He had the best bargain I could give him. I told him that I really wanted him to have it but I couldn’t give it to him! I guess I let him know who was in charge! Right?

Six o’clock came with no sight of our young man. I felt all those guilt and disappointed feelings that you “real parents” go thru on a daily basis. Then suddenly there was a knock at the door and there was our young friend only two dollars short. Karen and I smiled as she autographed his new Karen Stoffer diecast. As you can see from the picture everyone was happy.

The moral of this story is that I got a great “life lesson” of how many difficult decisions you parents make! Kudos to you! Thanks for sharing your kids with us.