Y'all are funny. Well, it'd be fairly easy to give him the extra cash, but the truth is he's right smack in the middle of learning how to budget for himself, and he has $742.28 in his savings account and can dip into that if he wants to blow it on wine, women and song during his spring break trip.

The fact is he really wants to blow our money during spring break and save his own so-called "real" money for some special kind of Apple laptop that seems to have inspired in him some encouraging signs of kid-scale financial planning. We're trying to help him learn that folks have to set priorities with money. More than anything, we're trying to teach the most important lesson I think he can learn, which is that stuff isn't just handed to adults on a platter. They have to work for it, plan for it, and even then don't always get what they want. This is a lesson that far too many of his spoiled rotten college chums and former fancy high school colleagues have never learned. From the looks of things, many of our friends and parental acquaintances have not said "No" nearly enough. The sense of entitlement some of his pals have is really quite remarkable (and disturbing).