Sunday, November 16, 2008

basilisks and rats

(in the car today)

A: Wombats live in Australia too.
C: I don't think wombats are real.
S: They are actually.
C: Basilisks aren't real. But anacondas can be like 30 feet long. A, that's as tall as our house.*
A: Wow!
S: Anacondas don't live around here. But black rats snakes do and they can be as long as daddy is tall. They don't bother people though; they eat rats.
A: Why?
S: Because their bodies evolved to digest them and they think they taste good. Do you think they're right?
A: Yes, but people don't eat rats.
C: Not usually, but I wouldn't be surprised if people living in the Warsaw ghetto did. A, a ghetto was a walled area of the city where people were forced to live. It wasn't very nice in ghettos but there aren't any anymore.
S: If people are really hungry they'll eat just about anything. A lot of people eat chickens, and eating rats isn't all that different from that. It just sounds grosser to most people.
C (deciding that A needed additional education): The Axis was made up of Germany, Hungary, Japan, (blah blah blah) and in 1939 they (blah blah blah) and Poland (blah blah blah for several minutes)
A: Wait! I need to say something!
S: Hang on, C. What is it, A?
A: Sometimes we see the moon in the daytime!

* Note the voluntary not-unkind engagement with his sister. I remain somewhat shocked every single time it happens, even when he is trying to show off.

(I won't regale you with yesterday's car ride, in which I taught C the differences between the mean, median, and mode in a discussion of "average" speed.)

1 comment:

Mala said...

Actually basilisks are real at least the "jesus christ" lizard variety and they can walk on water.