There's Nothing But Crap on the TV Tonight

Miss O fell out of bed last night. We were downstairs and heard a big "THUD!" and then ran up to find her sitting on her floor. No visible contusions or pooling blood, so we plopped her back in bed, repositioned her, and left.

Of course, this morning she denied that it happened at all. I'll tell ya, she is her mother's daughter. Unyielding denial in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. It's quite a trait -- she'll make her future partner silently fume someday with that superpower.

Mr. Z has been consumed with all things 'death,' of late. The boy is obsessed. He talks about not wanting to die, he asks how old the oldest person in the world is, he wonders if the world will ever end -- it's very uplifting. Normally, I try to explain things rationally and usually end up with something like, "Look, you're only seven. You've got many, many, many, many, many, many years left in your life, so you don't even have to worry about it. You've got, like, at least one hundred years." That usually holds him for a few hours, but then it's back to conversations like this one we had last night at bedtime:

MR. Z: Dad, so what's the deal with reincarnation?

ME: Well, we've talked about this before. A lot. It's the idea that after someone dies, they 'come back' as someone or something else, like a person or a plant or something.

MR. Z: So... give me an example.

ME: Dude, do we really need to talk about this again?!

MR. Z: Pleeeeease?

ME: Okay... a guy dies and he comes back as a dog. Goodnight.

As you can tell, my patience is growing ever-so-slightly thin.

Tonight, though, there was no death talk. I was in the laundry room putting stuff into the dryer and he was supposed to be in his room getting into his pajamas. I couldn't see into his room but I could hear him. This is what I heard:

MR. Z: I AM THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL T.V.! ASK ME A QUESTION!

I ignored him. Then:

MR. Z: [louder] I AM THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL T.V.!! ASK ME A QUESTION!!

So I walked around the corner into his room to tell him to get dressed and there I was, standing face to, uh, face with "The World's Most Powerful T.V." He was naked, of course, on his bed with his feet pulled back toward his head, and his bare-ass bunghole was 'staring' right at me. It was like walking into the eye of Hurricane Buttrina. Quite a spectacle, I must say.

Unflinchingly, I said:

ME: Um, here's a question, World's Most Powerful T.V.? Why isn't Mr. Z in his pajamas? I guess maybe he doesn't want his dad to come to school tomorrow to video the dress rehearsal of his puppet show, does he?

And with that, the World's Most Powerful T.V. ended its broadcast day.