I have had a lovely weekend.
It could have been lovelier, but the fact that it wasn’t was no one’s fault.
It could have been lovelier if there wasn’t an election coming up, because then I could have spent the entire weekend in the company of my peers.
Well, my pseudo peers.
Explanations?
Okay, the election thing first. I will be one of the people working at a polling station in my area. And that requires training. And my training was scheduled for Sunday from 9 to 3.
That cut into my weekend.
Oh, you meant …
You wanted me to explain the pseudo peers thing?
Well, there was two young gentlemen who, due to their age, are a lot like me. The brains are missing some frontal lobe development also.
But in their case it’s because they haven’t gotten to the age where that development should have taken place.
What’s it like?
Neither of these young fellows has reached the age of six yet, and one of them is actually only half that.
The younger one is like a mostly happy drunken short person. He bumps into things and says stuff that is somewhat inappropriate in adult conversations.
Yes, see? A lot like me.
And …
The older one is learning to negotiate and discovering how much he can push his assigned limitations.
He’s working on choosing words that preclude certain parts of negotiations and he’s actually very good at it.
But again, there are parts of his brain that haven’t yet developed and won’t completely develop until he’s in his twenties, as is normal for our species of primate.
So he’s all …
He’s discovering things in a head long rush to learn everything there is to know, and finding out that there are limits to what adults will tell him until he is old enough to deal with those things.
And, of course, he’s asking some things that we don’t really have answers to. Either the question requires explaining other things to him that are complexly subtle in order for him to understand the question itself or the answer it deserves, or, we don’t know the answer and don’t want to admit that a five year old is asking questions we still haven’t thought to ask.
And why are these two my pseudo peers?
Well, as I said, they haven’t developed fully in the cranial department and neither have I.
So when the three year old says “poopy head” I kind of want to agree and say, “Yeah. poopy head.” … though apparently I’m not supposed to.
And when the five year old asks questions that I can’t answer I’m sitting beside him waiting for someone to tell us why it is that rocks can be so flat on one side and so intricate on the other.
So …
I’m feeling at home with these two.
Even though they look at me strangely and wonder how a kid their age got to look as big and as old as their parents, I feel like we’re where we should be when we’re playing and teasing and giggling.
I’m like a mostly happy, drunken short person … I’m just not that short.
