Peyton dug up the earth with her broken twig, buried her lollipop stick in the ground (after it had sufficiently been licked bare, of course) and ran back to the swing, prideful in her work ethic. Landon, my nephew (now 13), then broke it down for me:
“Someday, when we’re all robots and the invding aliens come to destroy our center of gravity, they’ll find this spot. They’ll dig up that lollipop, thinking that it’s an ancient artifact from the mid 2000s. But there will STILL be residue on it from the sucker. They’ll taste it and their eyes will glow with joy! They’ll say, ‘Humans can’t be bad if they can create such delicious sticks that remain so tasty after thousands of years!’ and they’ll stop the invasions and let the robots go back to watching TV.”
And I thought, ” . . . BRILLIANT!” So me, my nephew, and my niece (who shall be hereafter called Her Honorable Benevolence) decided that instead of going inside to play American Idol (cause Peyton won last time anyway), we should gather up every lollipop in the house, lick it clean to the paper (but leave just a little bit for the aliens to find) and bury it for the good of all humanity — and robotdom.
Today’s lessons — swing as high as you can on the playground, so the clouds get jealous and rain somewhere else; American Idol is always more entertaining when the judges are all three your uncle; and littering should be occasionally encouraged for the greater good of mankind.
You didn’t know. Now you know.
