Funny Boy

William cracks me up. Every day.

We just got back from running errands and I grabbed the mail on the way in and started sorting through it. One of the envelopes I opened up ended up being junk mail, a prayer chain sort of thing from some unknown church. I unfolded something colorful. It was a big "rug" with a picture of Jesus in the middle of it. His eyes were supposed to magically open when you looked at it. Which they did. Sorta.

"Wierd!" I said. William wanted to see it too and so I handed it to him and started reading the spiel on the accompanying request for donations, how your prayers are answered if you use the rug to pray on top of it. William looks at me with a sort of "ewww' look on his face and says

"So, I'm supposed to sit on Jesus' face?"

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On St. Patrick's Day we went out to eat corned beef and cabbage. Our waitress, a pagan friend, was wearing bright green for the holiday.

"You do know there were no "snakes" in Ireland, right?" I asked her. (St. Patrick didn't drive the snakes out of Ireland - there WERE no snakes in Ireland. "Snakes" is symbolic for driving out paganism.)

Yeah, she knew, she was just dressing up for the job. And because they had good beer, she joked. She set our drinks on the table and left and William, who's heard the story before asked "So, are there snakes in Ireland now?"

"Hmmm, I don't know" I said. "There might be. Like in Australia, and rabbits. There weren't any rabbits in Australia until people brought them over to use as produce and they escaped into the wild."

"Produce?" William smirked at me.

"I meant to say 'livestock'."

"You plant them in the ground and then pull them up by their ears when..."

"But anyway" I interupted him "then they brought something else over to try to get rid of the rabbits, I think. Only now that's a problem too. Only I can't remember what.... what does Australia have too many of that would kill a rabbit?"

William's face was completely deadpan. "Rocks."

While I snorted ice tea up my nose, he continued. "Rocks would kill a rabbit. Big rocks. If you hit the rabbit hard enough. There are a lot of rocks in Australia."

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When I was getting ready to head out the door Saturday to take William and James snowboarding, William, who had been waiting in the car, came crashing back into the house and headed towards his room. "I'm just getting my music."

"Don't bother. I'm listening to my music." (It's only a twenty minute drive.)

"No, I'm listening to my music" he insisted, coming out of his room with CD cases in hand.

"No, I'm listening to MY music. If I have to drive you up there, I get to listen to what I want."

"We'll vote." he said smugly, figuring this would work in his favor as there were two teens vs. one mother.

"No, we won't. This isn't a democracy. I'm an evil dictator."

"Fine then" he said, flying back out the front door. "But in the morning, your statue is coming down!"

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Driving down I-5, past mile after mile of agricultural fields, I occasionally pointed out one of the more interesting products.

"Look, kiwi!" or "Oranges."

William pointed to a field with row upon row of white markers with blue labels on each tip, sticking about 6 to 8 inches out of the soil. "Look - sign posts. Those are just seedlings."

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