Episode 3 –
Daughter, age 7, to son, age 5: “Stop talking like an eight-year-old.”
Episode 2 –
Me to son: “What would happen if a pack of coyotes got into the house?” [Note: It’s important to ask kids questions like this to keep them on their toes.]
Son: “They’d wreck it looking for our meat stash.”
Me: “… Our meat stash?”
Son: “Yeah, the bacon and sausage we keep in the fridge.”
Episode 1 –
A couple years ago my daughter called out in the middle of the night: “Dad, dad. Come here.” She’d probably called out a number of times before I woke up. Still half asleep, probably more like three-quarters asleep, I trudged to her room. “Dad, I heard an owl! I heard it three times!” Plausible. I have no recollection of how I responded. She continued: “I need you to write it down. Write down on the fridge I heard an owl in the night three times.” I just wanted to go back to sleep so I trudged out to the kitchen and (groggily) obliged. My wife noticed the white board on the fridge the next morning and snapped a picture.
At 3:00 AM the night before I believed that I was carrying out instructions exactly as directed. (“Stop clubbing, baby seals.”)