Messing up little kids

When I was possibly a little older than Lauren's sister, I asked my mother this fateful question for a reason I can't fully fathom:

"Mom? What is that puddle for?"

The puddle in question resided in the depression made by the tiedown of my father's Cessna 180. We spent a lot of time outside of the airplane as my father got it ready for flight, and as a curious three year old this time was interminably long. I therefore resorted, apparently, to patently silly questions.

So she answered my patently silly question in kind. She said, "It's the ants' swimming pool."

Since there were ants galore around the area too, this explanation made complete sense to me, and for the next three years I was content to play at the back of airplane, placing ants into their pool so they could have their swimming lessons.

It wasn't until much later that I discovered that ants actually can't swim and don't have swimming pools, and all I was really doing was drowning ants.

I've blamed this sorry incident on my mother for years, but the other day I was astounded to hear myself tell a child, who was in line with me at a check out and who wanted to know why my baby was in the shopping cart in her car seat along with my other purchases, that I bought her in the baby aisle.

Even worse, this child wasn't mine. As he left the store with his parents, I heard him asking his mom whether they could go get a baby in the baby aisle.

"Sorry!" I called out to the parents. But of course, it was too late. I got my sense of humor from my mother. I guess I can still blame her after all.