our family has not come to conclusions yet on these important questions:

If only our dog had opposable thumbs and a brain bigger than a walnut, who knows what she could do?
1. Work the doorknob and let herself out in the morning
2. Fetch me the morning paper AND a cup of coffee

When you rub a dog’s belly, it calms the dog down. Could it be that dogs are autistic?

Is it physically possible for a dog in a coma to be catatonic?

When they take a CAT scan of a cat, what do they see?

If good dogs go to heaven, is that the same place that bad cats go?

Do good cats, then, go to hamster hell?

Two good female hamsters go to hamster heaven. Does one still eat the other?

I am staying in a super-fancy hotel in San Diego. My room is on 7th floor. I go to the elevator to head down to the Lobby. The bell rings, and I step into an otherwise-empty elevator car. Oh, good, no company. I hate company.

I push 1, but the light doesn’t stay lit. I try it again. And again, on the panel on the other wall. Hmm.

The car starts moving. Up. Oh, no. I hadn’t paid attention to the direction of the arrow when I stepped in. I sure don’t want to go up to 32 before I go back down to 1.

I am already on 9, and now 10. I push 12. We keep going. 16. I’m not getting ahead of the car enough. 18, 19, 21. At last the elevator stops on floor 21.

A woman is there, ready to get in. I realize she had pushed a call for the elevator to come up to 21 before I tried to override her command with each of my floor requests. She, of course, is going down.

I’m thinking what it must look like if I stay on the car. I look like a bimbo if I ride up, just to stay on an elevator to go back down. That would be embarrassing. Humiliating. I make an instant decision. Casually, I step off the elevator as if I had meant to go to the 21st floor for some reason. She gets in, and the door closes, while I act like I’m going somewhere with nonchalant purpose.

What now? Maybe I’ll take the steps down to 1. No, not from the 21st floor. I turn around to call another elevator and ride it down to my original destination of the lobby. But I want to be sure that when I push the button, it won’t be too soon, so as to re-open the door of the elevator from which I just disembarked. I listen to be sure the elevator has departed. I hear it moving, and the bell rings two floors down. On the 19th floor. Oops. It will stop again on 18, 16, 12, 10 and 9 for no apparent reason.

I call for an elevator and get in another empty car, heading nonstop down to 1. Right about then, it dawns on me that I might arrive at the first floor just about the same time as that lady will. By then, she will have figured out exactly why her elevator was mysteriously stopping at random floors.

When I was in first grade, I was having a digestive emergency, but was too shy to raise my hand and draw attention to myself. I pooped my pants right there at my seat.

This felt like that.

so, our three boys went Trick-or-Treating this evening. Tony, the sullen early teen, was dressed as a teenager from the hood. Andrew, our energetic and outgoing six-year-old actor, was Spiderman, complete with cute character immersion. Isaac, his younger brother, had a sheet with holes in it, and he plodded and mumbled from house to house.

when we got back to the house, it was clear that they did not have equal amounts of candy. Andrew, who had gone to several more houses than the other two, had a rich reward for his creative work. Tony, who didn't bother to go up to the door of at least half of the residences, had very few. i suspected that he had eaten a few of his pieces when i wasn't looking, even though they had been strictly instructed not to eat anything until we got home and i could inspect it all.

so, the three dump their treasures on the table. Andrew can't wait to dig in, but little Isaac starts crying when he sees Andrew has more than he does. Tony is sullen. he's a teen. i do some counting and some inspecting. Andrew has 60 pieces, Isaac has 30, and Tony has 10. i do a quick safety test by tasting one of each of their bounties. Tony complains that my so-called inspection fee is a higher percentage for him, and i tell him i'm glad that he understands math at last.

Isaac is simply inconsolable, and Tony will never be happy. so, i step in and make a parenting decision: Andrew will give 10 pieces to Isaac and 10 to Tony. How's that? Now Andrew has 39, Isaac has 39 and Tony has 19. Isaac is consoled at last, but now Andrew is upset. he says he went to extra houses and literally ran the whole time. he thinks he should get more than Isaac, who plodded and held back. i tell him to get over it and eat. but it's clear by he end of the first piece he is not enjoying what he has. i took some of his favorites when i took 20 pieces away from him.

after some time of bickering and disagreement, i make a fatherly declaration: "okay, everyone dump your candy into this bucket!" then i deal it back to them (minus a Whining While Dining Surcharge Fee). now Tony has 30, Isaac has 30, and Andrew has 30. "not fair!" screams Andrew (who now has only half of his original earnings) and Isaac (who is down 9 from the last round). Tony is satisfied and tries to explain to his brothers that this system is fair. see, it's the most fair, because now everyone has the same.

they go around for a long time, and finally i declare: "we're going to do this democratically. who here thinks we should go back to the original way?" Andrew raises his hand. "now, who thinks we should split it up evenly like this?" the other two raise their hands.

"there it is. fair, and democratic. now, i'm going to take 5 pieces from each of you so it will be even, and you can eat and enjoy."

i walked out of the room, knowing i had just seen an important demonstration of economic theory at work. i had taught the boys that free enterprise brings about class envy, so it is bad. i had demonstrated to them that a more controlled economy in which the wealthy are taxed heavily and the wealth redistributed makes the middle class happy, though it costs in additional governmental fees. and i had taught them that socialism is the fairest system of all, especially when the under-achieving masses vote for it in a democratic process. twenty-five pieces for everyone, including dad. not a bad piece of work.