5-year-old words of wisdom

   While camping recently with a church group, we decided to roast s’mores and Starbursts around the fire. (Duh, isn't that mandatory?) One of the guys brought his kids along, and I couldn’t help but notice little 4-year-old Eli struggling to get his Starbursts onto the skewer. I offered him my expert advice and we immediately became friends. Over the next two days Eli taught me many valuable lessons that I just had to share—for the sake of humanity:

1) Dolphins use echolocation, like this: "ee-ee-ee" to find things in the water. But it won't work for people if you lose your flashlight...

2) When you’re four years old you’re too little to go fishing, but not when you’re five. Sometimes you don’t catch any fish though, you only catch something green and slimy. I think it's called “mosst.” You have to put it back.

3) Medium fires are the best ones for camping. Large fires are way too big—they go all the way around the whole earth! (Complete with dramatic arm demonstration of their vast size)

4) It’s not good to eat rocks because people are allergic to them. If you eat them, you’ll get sick and die. But don’t worry, there’s no rocks in burritos.

Insect assault

Bees seem to have this dreadful mentality of ‘sting first, ask questions later.’ Part way through my run, one of these little buggers flew directly into my open mouth and stung me in the kisser. Talk about audacity. Here I am miles away from my apartment, tired, sweaty, and dehydrated with a lip that’s ballooning to epic proportions. There was a sprinkler on in the front yard of a house across the street, so I did the only thing I could think to do—I crouched down and stuck my head in the stream. Hopefully they weren't looking out the window... Whenever I heard the sound of a car approaching, I’d pull away and pretended like I was inspecting the grass until they’d turned the corner. (It was nice grass.) Believe you me, there’s nothing quite like trying to suck on a sprinkler in the middle of a stranger’s front yard with a big-ol’ fatty lip.

Almost heroes

Last week a girl I had just met told me that I reminded her of a Disney character. I braced for the worst, but was surprised when she replied: “you look just like Hercules.” My moment of glory had finally come! For a few short minutes I basked in the notion that someone would compare me to an immortal superhero who eats monsters for breakfast. Then she finished her thought: “You look just like Hercules—before he got all the muscles." Deflation...

Lucky me

One of my (unfulfilled) childhood goals has always been to find a four leaf clover and thus lay claim to my hefty portion of wealth, fortune, and prosperity that would undoubtedly follow. But despite all my efforts, the only thing I ever got was a handful of dead plants. So the other day when some friends and I were cutting through a vacant field, I made some wry comment about it and then leaned down to prove my point. Low-and-behold, the first stem I plucked had four leaves! I was shocked, not only with the irony of the situation, but because it was actually a lot uglier than I expected...In cartoons they always have such perfectly formed, symmetrical leaves—but in the real world, four leaf clovers actually look like the genetic mutants that they are. The extra leaf was substantially larger than the other three, and stuck out awkwardly in the back. It was anticlimactic, but hey, bring on the fortune.

Inflatable inflammation

(Blow up death trap)

You may feel  'light-as-air' bouncing around on these giant balloons, but rest assured, you’ll still fall like a rock. We were racing through a colossal inflatable obstacle course that was so big it was made of two separate portions that were lashed together. Not to toot my own horn, but I was kicking some trash on my first few runs through this beast. However, while racing my toughest opponent I scurried up the second incline and then catapulted myself down to the base of the climbing wall. Big mistake. I landed where the two segments had been pieced together and slid right through the seam, slamming into the concrete below. It’s an impressive feat to fracture your tailbone on a balloon obstacle course, but somehow I managed. Five weeks later it still hurts to sit down…