Talk about ExSTINKtion...

So, it's been a while since Mr. Z had one of his "I-don't-wanna-die" pre-bedtime lid-flips, but there was a brief flare-up during our vacation up Nort'. It was in the middle of the afternoon and I was sitting around with my family, bickering most likely, when I heard some commotion upstairs, where Mr. Z, Miss O and Miss W were playing. All of a sudden, Mr. Z comes running down the stairs kind of cry-wailing "Dad! I don't want to die!!!!" And we're talking like 2:00 in the afternoon, here.

I took him aside, calmed him down, and asked him what the shit was up? At the time, he couldn't really explain what had triggered his sudden mortality-meltdown, but after we talked for a bit, he seemed to be fine. That night he had a bit of a reprise at bedtime, but it was somewhat half-hearted and he chilled out.

I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before, but I decided to ask him if he could recall why he freaked out that one day. He paused for a minute, but finally admitted, "Well, we were playing this game, and Miss O said that there was going to be a huge diarrhea flood and then she said that we were all going to die from it, and that's when I realized that we ARE all going to die."

Diarrhea flood. THAT'S what set him off. So, we had another talk about how he probably won't die for another 90 years or so, and how we need to live in the moment and really enjoy every minute as much as we can.

And then he said, "And maybe in like 50 years, someone will invent an immortality pill that will make you live forever." And I said "Well, maybe," but I also said that I didn't know if I really wanted to live forever. Especially after the diarrhea flood. And we agreed that living as long as we possible can, pre-diarrhea flood, is really the way to go.

Now that that's settled, I need to talk to Miss O about this end-of-days-craptastrophe idea of hers. There's got to be a song in there somewhere.