Question of the Day: 56

"What we don't understand is how come his kids have an XBox?"
-- Kid at the McDonald's Playland.

I took Mr F and Mr Bunches to play at the McDonald's playland near us, a trip that was the result of two factors: 1. Mr Bunches had put his shoes on, and having put his shoes on, he then felt that we should go somewhere, and 2., When I decided to go somewhere, it was raining, and there's not many places to go when it's raining: it's pretty much McDonald's or the library, and I didn't want to push my luck at the library.

(The lack of places to go and play with your kids when it's raining or cold led to my having an idea that was simply brilliant, this past winter: An indoor playground-- get a big store and put padding and swingsets and ball pits and slides and stuff, all indoors, and then charge parents for memberships. In the summer, the indoor playground would be open when it rained and when it was nice, we'd take field trips. Like a daycare, only parents have to stay with their kids.)

(It's genius, I know.)

So I took Mr F and Mr Bunches to the playland, where I drank a soda and supervised them playing with the two other kids there, one of whom was a six-year-old boy who chatted up a storm while we were there. In the space of fifteen minutes, this boy asked how tall I was (then volunteered that his dad was 6'6"), told me he liked my cell phone, asked why Mr Bunches was wearing pajamas, explained the dynamics of climbing up a slide, discussed the Hamburgler with me and a dream the kid had once about the Hamburgler, talked about his mom and his sister, and then volunteered the information that he had an uncle that had no job.

I said "That's very sad."

He said: "Uh huh. He's got no money."

I said "That's sad for him."

The kid then asked the question of the day -- saying ""What we don't understand is how come his kids have an XBox?" I shrugged and said I didn't know.

When we left, I told his mom that he was a nice boy and had been very helpful. I wanted to say to her, though, "You need to be careful what you say about his uncle around him."