On Good Intentions.

With our governor offering the enchanting proposal to arm classroom teachers as an attempt to combat school shootings, the following conversation this morning takes on particular, if surreal, weight.

Me: OlderKid, it's time to go to school. Put away your Legos.
OK: Wait, Mama, I am finishing my shooter!
Me: You're making a shooter? Are you playing with shooters at school?
OK: No. Me and [redacted] just played shooters at school after nap.
Me: Is there a rule at school about shooters?
OK: Yes. We don't play with shooters.
Me: Do you know why there is that rule?
OK: The rule is we don't play with shooters.
Me: Because shooters might hurt people.
OK: Well, I'm just going to use the shooter to get the bad guy.
Me: But how do you know who the bad guy is?
OK: If I don't get the bad guy with my shooter, the batteries might run out.
Me: What? Okay...um, what's going to happen when you get the bad guy?
OK: He's going to rush very quickly into this part of my shooter. Then we will play together.
Me: [at a loss for words.]

Yes, that blanket rule about no gun-play seems to be working perfectly.

P.S. Does there seem to be an eerie blankness about this post? As if something were going on, something significant for some kind of competitive sports team? Something like horrible humiliation on a national stage? But it's so unbearable to watch or talk about that it's been completely repressed? Hmmm, okay. I guess it'll come to me, then.