On the sweetness of family life.

Two of your younger children ask if they can use your truck.

“Why?” you say suspiciously.

“It’s our pirate ship, Dad,” they say, as if it were obvious.  Against your better judgment, you say yes.  They clamber around on it.

A little later.  “Dad, can we eat some broccoli?”  Broccoli?  Green, healthy, vegetable . . . you say yes.  “Why broccoli?” you ask.

“It’s mermaid food, Dad.”  Again, apparently you should have known already.

A little later yet.  “Dad, can we have some rags?”  Old Man Suspicion is awake again.  “Why?” you ask.

“Dad!”–exasperated at how slow on the uptake you can be–“to swab the deck!”

Then they wash your truck clean.