Smart is as smart does

Yesterday, while I was playing with the youngest group of kids, I had a conversation with my nephew, who is all of 8 years old and thinks of himself as not being all that smart.

As four of us, including the two youngest nieces, were playing with my youngest niece's army of miniature wobbly-headed wide-eyed cats, dogs, horses, lizards, lady bugs and birds (who's brand name escapes me), and for whom she has an entire empire of houses, shops, doctors' offices, buildings, parks, etc., my nephew grumbled about something he hated.

"We should try to say we hate less things and try to say 'I love this or that' more often," I recommended, good titi that I try to be by setting the example.

"What do you you love?" I asked him, to get the process started.

"I love you!" he said immediately.

I hugged and kissed him almost to a smothering point because with my youngest nephew, as with most children that age, what they say is what they mean and they don't ever say what they don't mean.

"What do you hate?" he asked me.

I thought and thought and thought and couldn't come up with something I hated at that moment.

"Well, I hate people who hurt kids," I finally said.

"I hate bad words," he said.

"I do, too!" I agreed.

"So why do you say them?" he asked, quick to the draw.

"I don't say bad words!" I objected surprised, if a little chagrined, since I do have a reputation among my nieces and nephews for being a bit of a potty mouth.

My oldest niece is always telling the story of how I owe them more than $20 (about $1 a bad word) for all the times over the years that they've heard me involuntarily say the word shit.

"What bad word have you heard me say?" I asked, trying hard to remember whether any shits or stupids (which is a bad word in my sister's house) or anything worse had escaped my lips. But I could swear I'd behaved in a stellar manner during my short visit this time.

"You said hell," he said.

"But hell is the place where bad people go when they die!" I objected.

He thought on this a moment and he said: "Hell is a multi-meaning word."

Indeed! No doubt about it, my youngest nephew is decidedly the smartest kid his age I know. I'll just have to be even more careful now that he is not only aware that words have many different meanings but he also knows what all those different meanings are!

Maybe I can talk him into eschewing his dream of becoming a race-car driver so that he comes instead to my college on the hill to study English.