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.