I was running late in picking my daughter up from school to take her to the horse stables for a weekday riding lesson that she had earned by working at the stable all week. I was surprised that she hadn't picked up her cell phone and called me. Perhaps her cell phone was beneath the couch at her mother's house or tangled in her bedding at her biological poppa's house.

She did call, finally, and said that she had forgotten that I was going to pick her up and that she had gotten on the schoolbus, like she usually does. We arranged a meeting place, on the busline, that place being the coffee shop that she likes because they serve these killer smoothies.

She was waiting for me on the patio, when I got there. I reached into my wallet. I had a ten dollar bill and a twenty. You have to be careful what size bill that you hand to my daughter, because she will spend most all of the bill, whether you hand her a one, a five, a ten or a twenty. I handed her the ten and five minutes later, she was back saying that she needed ninety cents more.

"What did you get?" I asked her.