“What are you doing over there?” I said to the neighbor kid
by the fence. She’s five. It was either talk to her or watch Bub pick his nose while
the other kids ran around him, playing Mouse
Mouse Cheese. Fucking hate that game.
“I’m picking hot peppers,” she said. Oh, sweet, I love hot
peppers. This was my first thought.
“Well, you know, don't rub your eyes or anything,” I
said, the perennial parent. This was my
second other thought. The third thought I never had was how were there hot
peppers growing in my back yard this entire time and I never noticed? I was
pretty tired.
“So, what are you going to make with all those hot peppers?”
I said.
“They’re for my pet dinosaur,” she said.
“Shut UP!” I yelled. “Where did you get a dinosaur?” I was
picturing was a baby T-rex in a little 2-liter terrarium with moss and shit,
tiny arms clutching fistfuls of scotch bonnets, going RARARARARAR! Breathing fire.
And none of this really seemed too strange to me. Did I
mention I was pretty tired?
It didn’t REALLY get weird until she walked into her little Tiny
Town façade and said, “Lunch is ready!”
Even I could see there was no one in there, and she wasn’t
talking to the Mouse Mouse Cheesers. Nor was she holding any food, hot peppers
or otherwise.
“Are you talking to me?” I said, finally.
“Um, no. I’m talking to my dinosaur, silly. We’re having
lunch,” she smiled smugly.
Oh. I finally got it. She was just lying her ass off the
whole time. Ha ha. That was funny, kid. You got me. You are your imagination. So
you don’t really have a dinosaur, then, I take it? Damnit.
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