Those Crane Machines

Last week my daughter and I went to the store for a Redbox movie. Next to the Redbox they have those 50 cent crane machines where you try for the stuffed animal. I NEVER let my kids play those since I feel they are a rip off. My brother plays them all the time, but he frequents bars all the time that have them and that's just part of his entertainment value.

As I'm checking out my movie my daughter goes over and notices the "out of order" sticker on the window. She goes ahead and moves the joystick and the crane moves. It drops, doesn't pick anything up, and returns to normal. I told her that the reason it is out of order probably is because the crane isn't working properly.

As I'm grabbing the Redbox movie my daughter says, "Look dad, I got one." I disappointed her by saying, "That's like stealing sweety." She quickly shoved it back into the compartment. After rationalizing for a while I told her we need to walk it up to customer service. The lady looked perplexed that we actually went to turn it in. She asked if we lost any money and I informed her we had not. She simply said, "It looks like your lucky day little girl."

Part of me says we did the right thing by offering to give it back. Part of me says we should have insisted on giving it back since we didn't pay for it.

Thoughts? I'm just impressed she actually got something out of there.