... What is that supposed to mean? ...
January 22, 1999
8:21 p.m.
One of the best reasons for having a ten-year-old in the house has got to be the fact that it gives you the right to be completely juvenile whenever the mood strikes.  Take the following, for instance. The primary alternative rock station we listen to most of the time is playing a commercial that includes the notorious phrase, "Beans, beans, the magical fruit . . ." The other day while we were eating dinner, Brigid, in her wide-eyed, youthful manner, asked the obvious question -- "What is that supposed to mean?" Lisa and I smiled at each other, neither one saying anything. "Well?" Brigid said. "Beans, beans, the magical fruit," Lisa said. (I must say that my jaw dropped with the understanding that she was going through with this). "The more you eat the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so have some beans with every meal." Brigid was totally unaffected. My waifishly beautiful, regally innocent-looking wife, however, was not finished. "Of course, that's the wrong way to say it," Lisa continued. "Your daddy and his family are from Indiana, and I never heard it that way until I met them. I'm from the south, and down there we say 'Beans, beans they're good for your heart. The more you eat the more you fart. The more you fart the better you feel, so have some beans with every meal.'" With this, Brigid nearly fell off her chair laughing. "Why is that one any funnier that the first one?" Lisa asked. To which I promptly answered, "Well, duh! The word 'fart' is intrinsically funnier than the word 'toot.'" Personally, I think this fact is, in all actuallity, the true meaning of Newton's first law. By now, Brigid is spewing milk through her nose. I mean, think about it, she's hit serious paydirt here, what with being fully 10 and having both her mother and her father using the word 'fart' in ordinary, everyday conversation. So we proceed to have a fairly extensive conversation about exactly what makes the word "fart" funnier than the word "toot." Eventually, we calm down. All is fine for several seconds while we each replenish our oxygen supply. "But, Mama? Beans aren't fruit," says my innocent daughter. "Yeah, I know," Lisa replies. "They're actually vegetables, aren't they?" "Oh, I know," Brigid says, not missing a beat. "They're veg-toot-bles." And that set us off on a completely new cycle of laughter.   That's us, though. A laugh a minute. RECENT PROGRESS: Probably half way finished with "Searching for Gandhi." It's going to be a long one. Nearing first draft completion on something else. Run for the hills, folks. Collins is beginning to think NOVEL.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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