Two more minutes

William is beginning to learn the fine art of negotiation.  Not from me.  My negotiation skills are laughable at best - it makes me sick to my stomach and sweaty to ask for a better deal or lower price.  Luckily, Nang's an old pro and practices his skills daily.  The problem with Nang teaching William negotiating tactics is that Little Man uses them on us, specifically on me, and I don't even know that I'm being dealed down until I turn around, and Nang is laughing at me. 

Let me lure you into my web of manipulation

As his first lesson, William learned to add "That's a good deal" to the end of what he wanted.  It works like this:  "William, it is naptime.  We need to change your diaper."  William replies, "Ahhhhh.  No change diaper.  Stroller ride?  That's a good deal."  Then he walks to his stroller, gets in, and assumes that his good deal is THE deal.  Nang claims that this is a classic Asian negotiating strategy.  Weird thing?  It works!

Let me lure you into my web of manipulation

Now William knows to reply with "Two more minutes" to stall an inevitable event.  Originally, he learned this from Mimi and Papa.  It started out as one of us telling him he had one more minute doing what he was doing before we needed to move on to something else, but he realized that one minute went by too quickly, so when he learned about two being bigger, he added it to his repertoire.  "William, turn off the TV, it is time to go upstairs and take a shower."  "Two more minutes."  "OK."  And he can get a good ten minutes out of this.  Such. A. Sucker.