So my oldest child goes to preschool, and one of the tasks we were warned about in the parental orientation was that at some unspecified future time, he would bring home a Letter Bag and would need to return to school with a number of things that start with that letter to discuss. Wait, let me dramatically re-create the scene for you.
Teacher: And the list of things we don’t want the child to bring to school include toys, gifts or cards for individuals if not for everyone, candy, firearms, books by Al Franken or Barbara Ehrenreich, or anything whose radiation level exceeds 4 microrems.
Parents: Okay.
Teacher: We have the Letter Bag, where the child will bring back things that have the letter of the day in them and will discuss them. For example, if the letter is J, the child can bring in a jelly bean.
Child: A jelly bean? That’s candy. You said I wasn’t supposed to bring candy to school.
At any rate, you get the gist.
So the child today announced that the Awesome Letter Bag was coming home, and with this great power he had great responsibility. Well, he didn’t say that; although he loves Spider-Man at age 4, he’s not versed enough in the mythos to recognize that trope (and he doesn’t use SPIDER-MAN! as a power word or expletive like he uses STAR WARS!). But the letter of the week is C, so his task was to gather things with the letter C in them.
I am a bad daddy because my mind immediately went to inappropriate things that begin with C for a preschooler to bring to school and the accompanying explanations. Things like:
- Chianti, which Daddy makes us drink on nights where he cooks liver and beans for dinner.
- Castor beans. Daddy sometimes cooks these after I go to bed and wears gloves and a mask.
- Cat o’Nine Tails. Daddy has explained the rules as to when junior mariners can be flogged.
- Chihuahua. Of course, we’d have to get one of those handbag-adapted models. Which leads me to wonder, are those dogs specifically bag-trained?
In the end, of course, I did the right thing and he schlepped off with a number of toys depicting things beginning with C. Because I know that he’s got a permanent record at school, but I wonder if they’re also keeping a permanent record on me, the parent, and they probably don’t share my sense of humor.
