Ah, where to begin this tale? I was in the ladies’ room in the airport. Honestly, I was minding my own business. Honestly, I wasn’t eavesdropping on the next stall. On purpose.
Honestly, this is what I heard from the young mother to her child. “Stephanie, can you explain to Mommy your sudden objection to going potty?”
Now. Put aside the fact that this child is going to have inevitable problems of various sorts which may require her to recall this conversation on a therapist’s couch someday, but I was particularly interested in Stephanie and her Mommy because the week before I had been in the kitchenware department of Bed, Bath & Beyond where I heard, quite clearly, this exchange between another Mommy and little Timmy who could not have been three years old, and who had just picked up a rolling pin and was using it on floor like a steam roller while he made varooom, varooom noises:
“Timmy, that’s a rolling pin. Can you say ‘rolling pin’?”
Timmy says, “ohling in”.
Timmy’s mom looks as if Timmy has just won a full-ride scholarship to Princeton and follows with, “Can you tell Mommie the properties of a rolling pin?”
