I usually find the degree to which my young nephew, A.B., and youngest niece, K.B., are reactionary literalists to be a little troubling, but their bloody-minded credulousness actually came in a bit apropos recently. The family was all down in Savannah, Georgia, for a holiday and was debating how to spend the last day of the trip. After a bit of wrangling, the options were narrowed to an over-priced trip to see some dolphins and a Ghost Walk (of the sort behind the link, though not necessarily that Walk). The kids all wanted to see dolphins, but the adults, sensing that the dolphin trip could easily devolve into a wetly chafing pain in the collective ass, opted for the Ghost Walk.
Over the course of the trip, the already whining A.B. and little K.B. grew more and more unpleasant, and their parents grew more and more embarrassed and exasperated: it was particularly sad to see the desperation with which they repeatedly pointed out the rather uninteresting buildings in which something supernatural reputedly had happened in some time so distantly past as to never ever have existed as far as the two tots were concerned.
At the end of the walk, the falsely jovial yokel who had led the trip and who had throughout berated all of us tourists for being his least lively group ever made the mistake of pretending that he liked children and asked K.B. how she'd liked the tour.
"We didn't see any ghosts," she whined peevishly.
"Yeah," A.B. concurred before the jackass could deliver one of his pat evasions. "I bet on the dolphin trip you actually see some dolphins."
Right on! You keep speaking that truth to power, little man.
Over the course of the trip, the already whining A.B. and little K.B. grew more and more unpleasant, and their parents grew more and more embarrassed and exasperated: it was particularly sad to see the desperation with which they repeatedly pointed out the rather uninteresting buildings in which something supernatural reputedly had happened in some time so distantly past as to never ever have existed as far as the two tots were concerned.
At the end of the walk, the falsely jovial yokel who had led the trip and who had throughout berated all of us tourists for being his least lively group ever made the mistake of pretending that he liked children and asked K.B. how she'd liked the tour.
"We didn't see any ghosts," she whined peevishly.
"Yeah," A.B. concurred before the jackass could deliver one of his pat evasions. "I bet on the dolphin trip you actually see some dolphins."
Right on! You keep speaking that truth to power, little man.
judypatricia:
I'm almost half-way through the book and I love how it's written. I'd definitely check out more of his stuff. Thanks. 