One Man's Trash...

My 9-year-old son is in Cubs. They can earn badges by demonstrating effort or ability in different areas.

On Thursday night, shortly before his Cub meeting, my son tells me, "Dad! I'm *finally* getting my collector's badge tonight!"

I say, "That's really good, little buddy. What collection are you bringing in?"

"Our batteries."

"Our batteries??"

"Yeah! The ones we collect in that bottle in the cupboard!"

Hm.

"Um. Those aren't exactly a collection. They're garbage. We keep them in the bottle until we take them somewhere to get disposed of properly. We don't actually *collect* them!!"

"Oh well, that's ok! I'll take it anyway."

I point out to him that I'm pretty sure the point of the badge is to demonstrate that *he* has actually collected something over a period of time. Like, for instance, his binder full of Pokemon cards.

He doesn't actually respond. But I see the little *BING!* go off in his brain, and he runs to the playroom to get his cards.

Kids. Sometimes they don't see the forest for the trees.

You know what's really funny though? He's just like me. Just now, typing this post, I remember when I did the same kind of thing when I was in Cubs as a kid. For my "collection", I brought in....

"TV Guide" covers.

Yup. Ripped the covers off TV Guide for a few weeks and threw them in a binder. Never actually thinking that the hundreds and hundreds of comic books I had accumulated and stored would qualify as a *real* collection.

I got the badge anyway. Just like my son probably would have for his.... um... battery collection.