Good Samaritans
Spend enough time around a three-year-old, and you get pretty good at answering the question, “Why?” I’ve taken the approach of answering Carter as scientifically and truthfully as possible, partly because the longer the answer, the more likely he is to accept it as fact and not ask me again. But it’s also a good test to see if I really know what I’m talking about. I like to say that the final exams for any kind of engineer, architect, mechanic, or technician should consist of a room of preschoolers, pointing at a machine and saying, “What’s this do? Why?”
Today, when we were walking the dog, Carter was in a “Why?” mood. He’d stop his tricycle, get off, point at some plant or piece of trash on the street and say, “Daddy? I have a question for you. What’s this?” Time and again, I did my best to explain, but after 300 or so times, I started to lose my patience. Even my normally mild-mannered dog started to twitch like he had fleas.
As we rounded the corner on a particularly litter-strewn street, Carter stopped and pointed at a discarded campaign sign for a state senate race. We talked about what it was, and why it was on the street. “Sometimes people throw stuff on the street instead of putting it in the garbage,” I said. “It’s not very nice.”
Carter looked back the way we had come, and said, “Daddy? I have a question for you. Why can’t we just throw this ‘way in the garbage can back there?”
“Because we can’t clean up all the trash on the street, or we’d be out here forever.”
“Why?”
I started to drop the dreaded, “Because I said so,” then stopped. I didn’t really know why. So we picked up the sign, carried it back to a dumpster in a nearby alley (“Leave my tricycle right here,” he said), and threw it away. Ditto for an old sneaker and a AA battery.
“Good job, buddy,” I said, as I brushed some dirt from the sneaker off his coat. “We did a good deed.”
“Why can’t we just come out here and put ‘way trash all the time?”
“You know, maybe someday we should. But you’re not quite old enough yet.”
“Why?”
