While waiting for her grilled cheese sandwich yesterday, Caitlyn invented a transporter. Grandma’s house is just too far away.
She explained that she wanted a box that she could go into and then when she left it, she would be in California. Actually, she decided, this box should have three doors, one for Grandma’s house, one for the museum/aquarium we recently visited, and one for a specific corner on the road to Grandma’s house, one that is often hugely decorated for the most recent holiday. It was covered with enormous red hearts and twinkly lights when we saw it last month.
“This is a great idea,” I told her. “You figure out how to make this work safely, and we’ll have your college tuition totally covered.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, it means that people have been wanting something like this for a long time and if you figure out how to make it happen, we’ll never worry about money again.”
“Ok. But it’s easy. You take a box and then you dig a hole and you make the tunnel go where you want it to go. Then you crawl through the tunnel.” Caitlyn is so matter-of-fact about these things.
“But,” I reminded her, “it took us three days in the car to get to Grandma’s house. How long do you think it will take you to crawl to Grandma’s house through a tunnel?”
She thought briefly.
“A day.” My eyebrows must have gone up because she hurried on, “You’d have gorp with you and you wouldn’t have to stop to eat ’cause you could just eat as you went and you wouldn’t have to stop to sleep or anything.”
Ah… the transporting qualities of a good trail mix.