KIDS, YOU JUST GOTTA LOVE ‘EM!

At what age does your kid become a marketable entity? I'm not talking about commercials toting kid-friendly creatures advising little ones that they really need to own a (fill in the blank here: Tickle Me Elmo, Transformers, Care Bears, Wie....) or eat Lucky Charms because they are "magically delicious (translation: full of sugar!!!), no I'm talking about adult items. I received a call several weeks ago from a woman who clearly sounded as if she was in tele-marketing mode. I could hear the cheery, chirpy voices of other operators around her as they spoke to their own victims, err I mean customers. She asked to speak to Cameron and when I told her he was not available, she proceeded to tell me that he had been awarded a government grant. I told her that she was clearly mistaken, but she interrupted me and said that this was correct as Cameron had applied for a grant and it had been awarded. She warbled off my address as proof that "they" had his information. I told her that she clearly was misinformed because Cameron is a kid and therefore she must have the wrong person. She very adamantly continued on so I assumed there must be some type of large call-center reward given for lassoing in as many fools/day as possible just waiting for her. I finally had to hang up on the poor woman. I didn't think much more about it. Although the smirky smile on Cameron's face when I mentioned the story to his father should have clued me in to the fact that the chirpy woman might have not been as misinformed as I had concluded.

So several weeks pass and yesterday I received a hand-addressed letter from a local Insurance Company which will go nameless. We receive lots of letters each year from various insurance companies, mortgage lenders and real estate agents hoping that we will switch our business to their firms. The fact that this latest one was addressed to Cameron didn't faze me, as I assumed it was just a mistake and really meant for us. So I opened it. Here are the first lines of the letter:

"Dear Cameron,
I hope all is well with you. We spoke some time ago regarding your interest in (blankety blank) Insurance. I wanted to keep in touch and send you a new quote based on the coverage's (sic) we originally discussed."

Ok, at this point I'm thinking this nice looking man (his picture is on the letterhead) has had some type of insurance discussion with my 14 year old??!!!??? I turn to the next page which is the aforementioned rate quote and see that details are spelled out for a 2004 BMW. The kid had been talking about the kind of car he wants to drive ever since he turned 14. He has been holding onto every penny that he makes in order to save up for a car. He even tried to tell me that large milk costs $2 at his school which makes me wonder if that's true or if he is pocketing the difference for his car fund. I don't know why he thinks he will get a used BMW at 16. Neither his father nor I have owned anything more extravagant than a Honda or a Nissan. In fact, my first car in high school was my dad's old Ford Pinto and it was a stick shift to boot. I guess I have to chuckle and admire him for his interest, tenacity and ability to save at a young age. Whether he can make enough money to pay the $3,598.60 annual insurance cost (the agent was nice enough to only show the 6 month cost of $1,799.30 in the quote) is only the beginning- he certainly has a long way to go to pay for the car. That’s a lot of bottles of milk at St. Xavier!
So perhaps you should check out what else your kid is doing online besides the usual Facebook or MySpace communication, otherwise you may end up with Ed McMahon at your door step or at the very least, lots of mystery mail and phone calls. And a warning to those companies please put some age filters out there on your websites. It will save you a lot of time and money because this family is passing on the government grant and the kid is NOT getting a BMW. Lucky Charms anyone????