The Origin of Ideas

I'll play you for naptime, Daddy. Boomshockalocka! One nothing.

You ever witness that moment, usually with kids (though it still happens to me quite frequently), where you actually see them think that thought that HAS NEVER BEEN THOUGHT BEFORE. Like holy shit, why has no one else tried this? I’m gonna patent this so hard. I’ll be rich. A rich genius. I shall answer to no one!

Then the walls come crashing down.

My memory is terrible, but when I was maybe eight, I walked with some newfangled allowance down to the corner Speedway to get one of their awesome Orange Julius clones. I chugged half of it by the time I got home, started to get disproportionately sad it was almost gone. Then I got this IDEA THAT HAD NEVER BEEN THOUGHT IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.

Well, this is just water and orange stuff, right? So if I just fill this up with water, I’ll have THAT MUCH MORE beverage! And I can drink that down, fill it up again and again. It’s like a bottomless goblet of joy. How has nobody thought of this? Idiots! I’m so smart. Holy shit, I can do the same thing with Hawaiian Punch! You soda companies never saw me coming. You’re selling 12 packs, but I’m going for the one continuous, eternity pack.

Then I took a drink. It tasted like sucking on an orange Dum Dum stick five minutes after the sucker is gone. Not good. It was so damn watery. Is it possible I erred in my calculations? It was so scientific, so simple. WHAT AM I MISSING?

I still am open to theories, by the way, if anyone can help. Some things, like satellites, though, just cannot be explained.

Fast forward to the other day. It’s naptime. Happens every day at the same time, give or take 20 minutes. Bub starts moaning, like time-out moaning, about not wanting to take a nap. He won’t get into his “big boy bed.” I immediately threaten to strip it of that title, he seems unfazed. Real chess match we got going here.

He doesn’t want to pick his routine one book to read. I tell him fine, we don’t have to read a book, but we still have to take a nap. We’ll pick it up there…

Bub: No! No take nap! No take nap No take nap!

Me: Bub, it’s not too late for a time out.

Bub: No, no time out!

Me: Okay, then let’s take a nap.

Bub: Nooooooooo! No take nap!

Me: Well, do you want a time out then?

[Enter: the THOUGHT NEVER EVER CONCEIVED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND]

Bub: (in his best John Bender voice) YES. Want time out.

Me: What? Wait, no, you’re just saying you want a time out so that you don’t have to take a nap.

Bub: Yes.

Me: Well, no, then you don’t get a time out. That goes against the whole psychology of it. Don’t try to manipulate me, man.

Bub: Yes.

Me: No, get in bed. It’s naptime.

Bub: Noooooooo! No take a nap! No take a nap!

In the end, he got his time out. He earned it. And he really did need it. Afterwards, he got right into bed, totally Kool and the Gang. What's up, Daddy? Why do you look upset? (Yawn) He was asleep in five minutes. Being brilliant is pretty hard work.