Fairtime

Overheard at the fair:

(9 yo son, talking to three, teen-aged girls at the cat show): "We have a cat. My mom didn't want a cat, but when she found a mouse on the bed -- we got a cat. He's a good mouser. Just this weekend he caught a live chipmunk and brought it into the house. Yeah, the chipmunk is still in our house -- somewhere -- or maybe he found a way out. My dad called him "fatass" because he pushed our screen out to get outside to catch the chipmunk. (While Son is soaking in the attention of these girls, who are giggling quite profusely by this time, I'm telling him that storytime is over.) (Please understand that DH was quite annoyed by the whole "wildlife in the house" situation.)

Speaking of the 9 yo --
On the way home from the cat show, he asked if it is easier to shake a good habit or a bad habit. I said that it is easier to shake a bad habit if you have a good habit to replace it.

Of couse, he asks for an example. Hmm. Well, his great-grandfather wanted to quit smoking, so he carried candies in his shirt pocket all the time, presumably to suck on a candy when he wanted to reach for a smoke. This prompted a major tangent on all the kinds of candies that G'pa had and didn't have in his pocket. I was sure to include that said grandfather also lost all his teeth. I remember when he had them pulled -- when he got out from the dentist's office, he opened his car door and spit out a bunch of blood. Don't eat candy all day! But it's better than smoking.

Son brought the conversation back around by asking why G'pa wanted to quit smoking to begin with. Thinking of my mother and her foot-in-mouth disease, I quoted her as best as I could by saying that the doctor gave him a choice: quit smoking or die and leave the family business to his sons. Well, he couldn't very well leave the family business to his idiot sons because they would run it into the ground.

Next question, after some thought: "Is G'pa (my father, Son's grandfather) still an idiot?"

How do you answer a question like that??? I told Son that his grandpa learned a lot between the time that my grandpa stopped smoking and the time my grandpa died.

So there you go. Life lessons: Don't smoke. Don't eat candy all day. Open the windows from the top instead of the bottom when you own a cat. Beware of quoting people with known foot-in-mouth disease. Flirting with older women at the fair, while a time-honored tradition, is best done when Mom is not sitting right beside you.

Class over!