Hypothetical Botany Lesson

After I dropped my four-year-old off at daycare, my seven-year-old and I drove back home and he asked me if I remembered something.

“Maybe,” I said. Chances are usually 50/50 on my remembering anything. Actually, probably more like 70/30, and not favoring total recall.

“Do you remember when you were driving and you saw us over by the sheriff station?” He asked.

“I do.” My wife had taken the kids on a bike ride and I passed them in the car.

“And we were on our bikes, and Abbey was with us.”

“Yep.”

“Do you remember that Abbey was with us?”

“Yes,” my affirmation was solid, and my tone sarcastic due to the redundancy. He was stalling for some reason. There was something else he wanted to tell me, but he hadn’t built up to it yet.

"Do you remember that we saw that poop plant?” He asked. Now this is getting somewhere. There’s a water treatment facility next to the sheriff’s station. My wife must have called it the poop plant.

“Yes.”

“Before we went there I thought it was going to be a real plant!”

“Oh yeah?” I laughed. “Like a Turd Tree?” Hypothetical botany is a subject every father should cover with their seven-year-old son, in my humble opinion.

“I thought it would be a plant that looked like poop.” He clarified, but it wasn’t necessary. I got the picture all too well.

“Would turdberries grow on it? Then it would be a Turdberry Tree.”

“Ew, gross!” He laughed.

“Would you eat a turdberry off of a Turdberry Tree?”

“No!”

Then I was going to ask him if turdberries had corn kernels for pits, but I realized that that’s just gross, so I figured I would spare him that ghastly detail. Too bad you are not as fortunate. I should probably stop now. Please accept my apologies.