Blue On Line

One thing I like about kids is that they are almost never inhibited by their enthusiasm. Kids aren't afraid to be excited even if it's about the dumbest thing.

Today at my job I was standing outside a bathroom while the kids change from their pool clothes back to their normal clothes. I'm supposed to stand there because in case anything happens, it becomes my job to rush in and become some sort of bathroom superhero. I think it's one of those role things. Where my presence assumes safety. I'm not good in bathrooms. I don't enjoy talking to people in bathrooms even in no stress situations. If something happens in there, chances are I'm gonna start screaming too. I'll probably run away...for help of course. But when you run fourteen miles a day and eat mostly peanut-butter, the flight side of your fight-or-flight response is pretty dominant.

If they gave me a plunger, I'd be a lot more confident. It's a scenario-appropriate symbol of power.

So anyway, a bunch of boys are changing in a bathroom and I want no part of it but from outside I hear the kids running the hand-dryer and I'm about to yell at them until I realize that they're using it to dry their swim trunks. And then I hear one of the kids say, "Kyle! You're a mental-genius!"

And he completely meant it and no one made fun of him. It struck me because my capacity to sincerely make that statement has been mocked out of me. First of all, how many adults can sincerely use the word "genius" in a complementary way? Not many. The crushing waves of sarcasm has beaten that out of them. How many could call someone a "mental genius"? And mean it.

And I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. Obviously an adult wouldn't say that because it's redundant but beyond that, it was a genuine, unique compliment.

I remember the moment that expression of amazement was lost. I was in this field trip to...a field. It was basically a field. I forget the details but I remember looking over this field and going, "Wow! It must be over an ACRE!" Because, I didn't what an acre was. I still don't know. But an older kid behind me went, "Duh! Of course it's over an acre!" And I was done. My sincerity had just been gobbled up like a raw chicken carcass over a pit of gators.

And while I don't think the world would be a better place if everyone just walked around being fascinated all the time, that would get annoying really fast, it was nice to hear something completely free of cynicism.

...I can't imagine any scenario where I could even call anyone a regular genius with the same enthusiasm that that kid had.

...if someone...built an...oreo cheesecake...that could be lived in for an indefinite amount of time...and got free cable...maybe I could call that person a genius. And they dropped it out of a helicopter onto a target of my face on my birthday. Maybe. I'd still probably be a little too self-conscious.

Little kids show the things that have died inside you...