Sometimes driving Cartter to school is a learning experience. This morning, for instance, I learned that Polar Bears have black fur underneath their white fur because it “attracts the sun.”
“Why do they need white fur, then?” I asked.
“So they blend in with the ice.”
“Why do they need to blend in with the ice?”
“To hunt.” Sometimes the world makes more sense when it’s explained by a seven-year-old.
“How do you know all this?” I asked as the first light on the crosstown turned green.
“Well, you know how there are books like everywhere . . . and they have all these things . . .” Yes, I know about that. My books just don’t have enough Polar Bear facts.
Some things aren’t as simple as Polar Bear fur, though, like what do Alpacas eat? Maybe grass? But wait, do they live in the desert? There’s not a lot of grass there. I don’t know. Sometimes Alpacas are at the petting zoo, and you can touch them, but you can’t touch all the animals there, like the kangaroos. Those are off limits. Apparently, Cartter’s iPad at school will be able to solve these Alpaca mysteries.
By this time, we’d made it through the crosstown and were rounding the final bend to Cartter’s school. “You know,” I said, “When I was in second grade, we didn’t have the internet, and we couldn’t just look things up on Google.”
“Did you have cars?” Cartter wanted to know, and “Why didn’t people have the internet and things?” Also, “You know Google tells lies.”
I tried to explain to Cartter that Google is a search engine that just produces results in response to a query and that those results would necessarily contain varying degrees of truth, which doesn’t equate exactly to Google “lying.” He countered that his teacher prefers that his class use “Britannica School” to do their research. This sounded like a good idea to me. One probably encounters less porn using Britannica School than using plain old Google.
Finally, when I reached the drop-off line and flipped on sports radio to listen to Petros Papadakis talk about how much he detests the Superbowl, Cartter informed me that “Taylor Swift is ruining football.” I was impressed that he could know so much about the state of football without ever actually having watched an entire game. “There is a video, and it shows. The Chiefs guy throws the ball, and this guy . . . Travis . . . Kelce? Travis Kelce, he looks over at Taylor Swift, and then he misses it.” Holy shit, he misses it! Travis Kelce misses it! And it’s Taylor Swift’s fault? That is horrible. I tried to remain as calm as possible in light of this news.
“I don’t think there is a video like that,” I said. We were nearing the front of the line at this point, and I turned around to look at Cartter. He faced me earnestly, wide-eyed, backpack strapped on, poised to hop out of the car.
“There is.”
“Where?”
“I saw it. On School Britannica.”
“Well, I guess School Britannica tells lies too then. You know, I kind of like the Chiefs, and I think Taylor Swift is kind of pretty.”
“Well, me and my friend Chase made up a handshake, and we say, The-Chiefs-Suck.”
Now I know.
The Raging Elitist 