Saturday, September 10, 2005

The live snake anecdote.

I've been trying to teach my charming daughter how to play twenty questions, but we're not quite there yet. I stumped her the other day by thinking of an animal (a snake) with no legs. No legs? How is that possible? Stumped.

That's all I could come up with when she started asking, "where is the snake's body?" She was holding a baby boa and asking this question, and I couldn't understand what she meant. She wants to know where the legs are?

"That's the snake's body," I told her. "You're holding it."

Then she got right to the point. "Where's his vagina?"

The manager who was watching us with his merchandise smiled and chuckled. I answered fully, "I don't know, honey." Trying to think of how to tell her something useful, I went on to say, "snakes lay eggs like birds."

She found this interesting, but it wasn't until hours later that I realized I'd made a connection she hadn't. She has no idea what a vagina has to do with laying eggs. Why did Daddy tell her that? Fortunately, she hasn't asked further.

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