from the mouths of babes

originally posted October 8, 2007


I have an eleven-year-old daughter. I know I've mentioned this before, but she doesn't get as much screen time in this blorum because she doesn't see dead people and doesn't throw up on me that often anymore (the last time was almost four years ago, and it was just as I was leaving the house to go out to a department related dinner, and it was primarily up the sleeve of my favorite jacket – the vomit, that is, not the dead people. She just doesn't seem to see the ghosties). She is a delight, however, this daughter – and not just because of the absence of ghost sightings and projectile vomit. These things can be charming as well, under the proper circumstances.

This daughter – whom I shall refer to for the moment as The Qw-"iter", pronounced "quite-er", as she is half Qwanty, half "writer" – says all sorts of things that I never expected to spring from the mouth of someone who sprang from my loins. I like to write these things down, so that I can later reflect on them, string them together to derive some larger meaning, and marvel over what a wee, insightful wonder she is.

Take for example the following:

Oh great. It's a fountain of blood.

Spoken without an ounce of terror, this came about while we were in the kitchen. I was confused, because I couldn't see the fountain of blood, and for a moment I feared she had gone the way of her younger brother and was seeing dead ancient peoples and their dead ancient people garden focal points. Fortunately, this fountain of blood was in the computer game she was playing. Now, taken alone this comment doesn't seem particularly insightful, but just hold the fuck on, you.

Here is another:

You know how sometimes you're eating a Slim Jim, and you swallow it, but there's still something left in your mouth, and it doesn't taste like anything?

Ah yes. The lingering, flavorless mystery that is the chewy memory of the once snappy Slim Jim. I don't think she ultimately went anywhere with this one. As I recall, I told her that I did indeed know what she was talking about, and this was enough for her, and she returned to doing battle around a computerized fountain of blood, satisfied that I too had tasted the ghost of the Slim Jim.

Some time ago, in a somewhat devastating moment for me, she said this:

YOU know who Johnny Depp is?

Yes, can you believe it? ME? Ancient, thirty-three year old ME? And I said to her, YOU know who Johnny Depp is? We stared at each other in a moment of shared disbelief, and then went uncomfortably about our respective business.

***

What's the point of all this? What do these comments mean? Well, for one, they suggest that I am negligent in that I let my daughter eat sticks of "meat". Beyond that, these comments taken together describe the experience of graduate school. If you were to have asked me a month ago to describe what graduate school is like, I might have gaped open-mouthed at you, blinked rapidly, teared up, made a few low, guttural sounds, and ran away to hide in a closet. Ask me now, and I would tell you this:

It's like sitting by a fountain eating a Slim Jim.

One day, you're sitting next to a beautiful fountain, dipping your toes in its cool, misty loveliness, tossing your pennies in and making marvelous wishes, savoring the day and eating – nay, snapping into – a Slim Jim. It's a fine Slim Jim, and it is indeed snappy and zesty and meatish – all the things a Slim Jim should be. All is well. Then, as a few drops of water from the magnificent fountain fall into your mouth, you suddenly realize that the water is saltier than it should be, and that it isn't just the Slim Jim talking. No, there's something WRONG with this water. And then slowly it dawns on you that this isn't a fountain of water, it's a fountain of BLOOD, and you try to scream this thought – Oh great. It's a fountain of blood – but there's something in your mouth and you can't make the words come out! It's Slim Jim, but it doesn't taste like ANYTHING, and there's just so much of it! What's worse, as you're sitting there, flailing about, spattered with blood, gagging on flavorless Slim Jim remnants, some youngun comes by and expresses total disbelief that you could possibly know who Johnny Depp is, and suddenly you feel so old – so very, very old. Then, just when you think things can't get any worse, a woman in shoulder pads dashes by, pausing only to kick you swiftly in the crotch and give you 10,000 Slim Jims that you must eat in a timely fashion.

You lay on the ground, splattered with gore, your mouth full of something that tastes like nothing, clutching your crotch and wondering where the time has gone, eyeing the 10,000 Slim Jims with disgust and trying to remember why you ever thought any of this was a good idea in the first place. Then, as the tears fill your eyes and you reach for Slim Jim number 1, Shoulder Pads comes back and tells you you're doing a great job.

And that's what graduate school is like!