Ana went to a birthday party today.

[conuly]

Now, Jenn didn't want to bring Evangeline, so I ended up being the one to drop Ana off. (And I do mean "drop off". The woman was hedging trying to get me to stay to help "supervise" to which I said a. she's seven! b. she's seven! I'm sure she'll be fine! and finally c. actually, I just kinda hate people, but here's my sister's number!) Luckily, it happened that somebody there lives a block away from us, so I imposed upon her to drive Ana home afterward because the bus is a bitch on a Sunday. (This woman also doesn't seem to have stayed. She didn't say anything to the hostess, though, which maybe is the trick? Or maybe she came back after I left?)

Now, we had to walk a long way to get to the bus to this kid's house. (This is because I went the long way to get to that bus, because I wanted to get Sri Lankan food to fortify me. We walked along Jersey Street. We didn't get murdered. I'm sure some people who think folks get killed there every day will be disappointed to hear this, but actually, there have only been three murders there in the past decade, all of which were family affairs. You don't, as my sister once noted, open up the paper to read "Another ten shot dead on Jersey Street!", but it can be hard to convince some people. If you have no idea, this is because you don't live on Staten Island.)

And as we were walking, Ana and I talked about vampires. Ana was DRESSED as a vampire. It was a costume party.

I said something about what she'd do if she met a real vampire, and she asserted that vampires are not real.

Me: How do you know?
Ana: Because vampires are monsters, and monsters aren't real.
Me: Ana, that's a bit of a circular argument there. You haven't proven anything. How do you know monsters aren't real?
Ana: Well, monsters are real, in a way, but not like monsters with lots of arms and ten eyes and scary like that, so vampires aren't real.
Me: Ana, you're still assuming the premise! How can you prove vampires aren't real?
Ana: Because everybody says vampires aren't real!
Me: But everybody could be wrong, you can't just-
Ana: And MOMMY says vampires aren't real, and she should know!
Me: Appealing to authority? Mommies make mistakes. That's not proof.
Ana: And I know people die, and I know they don't die from vampires, they die from being sick or hurt. Like Grandma's dog died, and it wasn't a VAMPIRE, she was just OLD.
Me: So just because you've never seen a vampire attack, you don't think vampires are real?
Ana: Right.
Me: But what if you saw somebody who had been killed by vampires?
Ana: Well, then I'd think they were real. But they're not.
Me: That makes sense. But just so you know, it's still not proof. You have reasonable doubt of vampires, but you can't prove they don't exist. It's really hard to prove something doesn't exist.
Ana: Enough! Don't talk about what you believe in!
Me: Actually, I don't think vampires are real :)
Ana: Well, don't talk about what you don't believe!
Me: Uh... I can't talk about what I think is real, OR about what I think isn't real?
Ana: Right!
Me: Well, what the heck is left? Schrodinger? Is this Schrodinger's conversation, it's neither real or unreal?
Ana: Uh-huh! (Yes, that went over her head, but she was busy trying to not lose her shoes.)

*sighs*

Sooner or later she's going to have to learn a little bit more logic instead of non-logic. Maybe it's something you grow into?

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

A slightly dangerous comparison given that I've never *heard* "stat", so I could have a wrong pronunciation in my head for that, too.

But despite the vagaries of English spelling, I feel pretty confident that "stat" rhymes with, say, "flat cat sat mat rat".

Er, in other words: thank you for the confirmation!