Little Luke "Skywalker"

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

A Gift That Backfired!

Due to the influence of those advertisement sale flyers by Giant (the hypermarket), we went ahead to buy Little Skywalker his Christmas present last weekend. J and I were surprised to see a electric bike selling at RM99 only! We wanted to get one of those for a long time now, but couldn't afford one as they were selling at over RM200 at Jaya Jusco. So, filled with excitement, we went ahead to Giant and grabbed it.

While we were at Giant, we let Little Skywalker to have a test ride on the bike to make sure that he likes it before we do the "$cha-ching$" thing. We put him on the bike and noticed that his legs are long enough to reach the throttle. I pressed on the throttle myself and led him on a slow ride within the toys area. He seemed quite intrigued with it. Hence, we went ahead and bought it. We also bought a big bag of MamiPoko as the price is unbelievable!

We got home and I went ahead to assemble the "made in China" electric bike. It took me more than half an hour to put the whole thing together as the instructions were not clear enough. After screwing the whole thing together, I put in the rechargeable battery and started messing around with it. After making sure everything was working fine, I put Little Skywalker on it for the first time.

He was quite happy sitting on the bike and pressing all the buttons that creates sounds and lights. There was also a siren at the back of the bike which Little Skywalker liked best. Unfortunately, all hell broke loose when I pressed on the throttle! It seems that Little Skywalker is too "chicken" to ride on his new bike. The new and strong battery must have scared him! He cried immediately and started to get off the bike by himself. We tried to calm him down and slowly lead him back on the bike. But all he could kept saying was "不要不要!" (don't want x 2). He just refused to play with his new bike anymore. Sigh!

We spent the next few hours trying to coax him into playing with his new toy, but he just kept mumbling "不要不要!". Instead, he went on to ride on his old and leg-powered car. Normally he does not play with that car a lot. I guess he did it as a sign of protest to us putting him on such a killing-machine. He did not even wanna play with those noisy buttons anymore. Nothing we did could change his mind on the bike. I guess this will be remembered as one of those bad childhood memory huh?

Later, I was messing with the bike in order to attract his attention. Suddenly, an idea came to mind - reverse psychology (激将法). Whenever Little Skywalker came close to the bike, I kept pushing him away and signaled to him that the toy is not for him. It worked! He kept wanted to get near the bike and I kept him away from it. Before we knew it, he was already sitting on the bike. I did not dare to start the engine again, thereby allowing him to play with those noisy buttons and siren only. He also kept his feet as far away from the throttle as possible (see pic).

Just as we thought that everything was going fine, Little Skywalker accidentally stepped on the throttle and the bike moved forward a bit! He got shocked immediately and wanted to get as far away from it as possible (again!). After that, nothing else worked anymore. Whenever we tried to get him near the bike, he will pushed J in front of him and asked her to play with the bike instead. It was quite funny the way he used J as his shield from the killing-machine.

I thought of another trick later, that was to put some of his "friends" on the bike and pushing them around the living room in order to arouse Little Skywalker's sense of jealousy. Just like the other psychology tricks that I've pulled earlier, it didn't go through. All Little Skywalker did was pulled his "friends" one-by-one off the bike. He still refused to be coaxed into riding it. We were totally all out of ideas by then.

Presently, the bike is sitting at my parents' place as Little Skywalker spends majority of his time there than at our house. We hope that he would be brave enough to get on it one day. Otherwise, it would just be remembered as one of those bad gifts. Too bad our local retail store does not offer a return policy. Or maybe we should just read the statement printed on the box that goes something like "not for children below 3". Sigh! But at least we know he won't put on some dangerous stunt with his car or bike when he grows up...

Jotted down by Egghead :: at around 11/23/2005 09:15:00 AM :: and invited 20 Blah(s):