I'm Working On Growing Up, Really
A man is sentenced to death. He has to go into one of three rooms: the first room contains raging fires, the second room contains assassins all armed and ready to shoot him, and the third room contains lions who haven't eaten in three years. Which room is safest for him to go into?
I asked this riddle to my kids last night and had them choose one room each. I had planned to tell them the answer in the morning, but when Sarah chose the third room (and gave a different reason for going into the lions' den, that after three years they would probably be really nice) I gave it to her anyway. The real reason THAT'S the safest room is because lions who hadn't eaten in three years would be dead.
I have to admit that Sarah and Jeffrey when they're not spraying each other with the water hose and clawing each other's eyes out (or trying to, I exaggerate slightly) ... or just being nine and eight, with school coming in twelve days and going a bit stir crazy with all this shepherding between our house and Grandma and Grandpa's place and while going outside quite a bit it's the same outside. I do not remember being quite as exuberant as Jeffrey is now when I was his age, thirty-five years ago.
Maybe that should scare me a bit. It took me two days to read J. M. Barrie's novel Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (ISBN 1853261564) which is actually a six-chapter excerpt from the author's first book The Little White Bird published four years earlier in 1902. Peter Pan gets introduced to us as a baby who climbed out of his parents' window when he was seven days old and flees to the title location, encounters the fairies who only come out when the Gardens are closed, and grows up.
And doesn't grow up there, if you remember the character. This "origin story" of Peter Pan was more like the Robin Williams movie Hook from the early 1990s and filled in the gaps with talking birds, fairies, and thimbles for kisses, not the animated Disney version. But I'll confess the Once Upon A Time version of Peter Pan, where he commits to remain young forever no matter what the cost, has somewhat scarred me on him. (So will the Barrie books, once you read them.)
Last night was pizza from Papa John's after I got home, but it looked like it was cut by monkeys -- the slices didn't even try to be even! And tonight after work I will be meeting most of my family (except for Martha, this is one of her nights working Burger King) at a picnic sponsored by the local Disabled American Veterans chapter at the local VFW post ... something like that. Winner, winner, chicken dinner -- I can't argue with that!
Nor shall I,
David
I asked this riddle to my kids last night and had them choose one room each. I had planned to tell them the answer in the morning, but when Sarah chose the third room (and gave a different reason for going into the lions' den, that after three years they would probably be really nice) I gave it to her anyway. The real reason THAT'S the safest room is because lions who hadn't eaten in three years would be dead.
I have to admit that Sarah and Jeffrey when they're not spraying each other with the water hose and clawing each other's eyes out (or trying to, I exaggerate slightly) ... or just being nine and eight, with school coming in twelve days and going a bit stir crazy with all this shepherding between our house and Grandma and Grandpa's place and while going outside quite a bit it's the same outside. I do not remember being quite as exuberant as Jeffrey is now when I was his age, thirty-five years ago.
Maybe that should scare me a bit. It took me two days to read J. M. Barrie's novel Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (ISBN 1853261564) which is actually a six-chapter excerpt from the author's first book The Little White Bird published four years earlier in 1902. Peter Pan gets introduced to us as a baby who climbed out of his parents' window when he was seven days old and flees to the title location, encounters the fairies who only come out when the Gardens are closed, and grows up.
And doesn't grow up there, if you remember the character. This "origin story" of Peter Pan was more like the Robin Williams movie Hook from the early 1990s and filled in the gaps with talking birds, fairies, and thimbles for kisses, not the animated Disney version. But I'll confess the Once Upon A Time version of Peter Pan, where he commits to remain young forever no matter what the cost, has somewhat scarred me on him. (So will the Barrie books, once you read them.)
Last night was pizza from Papa John's after I got home, but it looked like it was cut by monkeys -- the slices didn't even try to be even! And tonight after work I will be meeting most of my family (except for Martha, this is one of her nights working Burger King) at a picnic sponsored by the local Disabled American Veterans chapter at the local VFW post ... something like that. Winner, winner, chicken dinner -- I can't argue with that!
Nor shall I,
David
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