Q & A

Boys day at Seger Park, and Noah’s got a loop going at the big-kids jungle gym. Climb the ladder, spin the steering wheel, sit in the right-hand slide, whiz down the chute, scamper back to the beginning. He’s laying down the usual soundtrack: “London Bridge” and “Three Blind Mice” and “Now I Know My ABCs” set on random, plus a clockwork shout to end each circuit. Do it again!

We don’t have much conversation, exactly, these days. More like the occasional short soliloquy plus a bit of jibber jabber. “Birdie tweet tweet jibber jabber jibber jabber in the sky!” “Kitty cat jibber jabber no kitty cat!” “Button, one two penny, jibber jabber jibber!”

Still, that’s better than I manage with close relations half the time, and anyway, if you know as many verses of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” as Noah does, there’s not much time left over for dialogue.

Up the ladder, spin the wheel, down the slide. Do it again! Up the ladder, spin the wheel, down the slide.

And then, out of nowhere, he looks up and says, “Ask me a question.”

“What?”

“Ask me a question!”

Well this is new. “A question? Okay. I’ve got one. Ready?”

“Ready?”

“If Train A leaves Pittsburgh traveling east at 30 miles per hour, and Train B goes west from Philadelphia at 40 miles per hour, how many passengers will get hit with the federal estate tax when the trains explode in Altoona?”

“Daddy! None, unless the collision takes out a Rolls Royce. Only one out of every 200 estates is big enough to trigger the tax! Why are you even wasting my time on this foolishness? Jibber jabber!”

Which was totally the correct answer, only we didn’t get quite that far. It was more like this.

“Ready?”

“Ready?”

“Is the slide fun?”

“Is the slide fun?”

“Noah! You have to answer the question! How about this one. Where is mommy?”

“Where is mommy?”

“Honey, the way it works is that I ask a question and you tell me an answer. So if I ask, ‘Where is mommy?’ you can tell me, ‘Mommy’s at work.’ Or when I ask, ‘Is the slide fun?’ you can tell me ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”

“Yes or no.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll ask you a question. Do you want to go see the doggies over there?”

“See the doggies over there?”

Impasse. No more of this asking questions exercise. Time to go back to the loop.
He springs to his feet, climbs the ladder, spins the wheel, and whooshes down the slide. Then looks up at me and modifies his request:

“Tell me a question.”