Misconceptions

In honor of Emily's "half birthday" today, I thought I'd share this funny story.

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I remember as a little girl mishearing words or phrases my parents or others said. For a long time, I thought the expression "to each his own" was "to reach its own." And "the pot calling the kettle black" was "the pot coal and the kettle black." Made sense to me.

Awhile ago, Emily, then 8, was trying to convince me how nice it would be to visit Florida. I'm not a fan of Florida after spending 2 1/2 weeks there in 1987 during "bootcamp" with Teen Missions. Hot, humid, buggy...not my idea of a fun place to re-visit.

Emily was talking about the beaches, so I mentioned a little word: alligators.

Her eyes grew wide. "You mean they roam freely down there? Even at the resorts?"

I said that I'm sure they did sometimes. Stuart interjected that they only eat the occasional tourist. I quickly added that they preferred frogs or ducks or other little creatures they could easily catch.

"Poor froggies and duckies!" Emily said which surprised us since eating a person should have been much more horrifying.

We laughed and said as much to which Emily replied with a shrug, "Terrorists should be eaten."

"Tourists...NOT terrorists," we explained.

The penny dropped.

But maybe Emily's on to something...

Maybe we should suggest that the government use alligators to help apprehend terrorists. They're cheap to hire and only require the occasional terrorist to keep them satisfied.