Crazy Crap Item #84: The part where Jack proves some things are just hard-wired

As is well known, lately I am given to garden beautification.

Well, imagine my glee when I spotted a wee "kiddy park bench" on sale for $20 at Jewel! I was in bliss, and I snatched one up as quickly as my little hand could snatch. Once home, I assembled it and placed it in the far corner of our garden, thinking maybe to use it as a picturesque shelf for potted plants (it being much too small for even a wee adult such as myself to fit on it).

Well, later, Jack had spied said bench, and coyly asked who I had made it for. I'm no slouch at coy, so I indicated that it would be for any small children that wanted to sit in my yard. More direct this time, he asked if he could come over and sit on my bench.

I assented.

As he sat on the bench, he examined it more carefully, noting a foursome of animals in wrought iron that serves as the back of the bench. He pointed to what I think is a squirrel, on the far right.

"Look, he's holding a gun."

Mind you, while Jack does love his cowboys, no one could claim he's been assaulted by an onslaught of media images of guns. His parents are very responsible on that count. But, like most boys, he seems to know about -- and be fascinated by -- guns instinctively. While he owns no toy guns, he frequently makes recourse to large sticks or other detritus from my yard to stand in as makeshift guns.

Well, besides the fact that I don't want to further encourage this fascination with guns, the fact was THE SQUIRREL WAS NOT HOLDING A GUN. It was, in fact, holding a fiddle. I told Jack as much.

No, Jack disagreed, it's too big for a fiddle. His dad plays the fiddle, so young Jack knows from fiddles.

I agreed, it was an oddly large fiddle, but if he looked closely, he'd see that all the squirrel's friends were holding musical instruments. Look, I said, the cat has a tambourine! And the dog has a bass fiddle!

In reponse, he pointed again to the squirrel and said, "And he's holding a gun."

I gave up.