It was a bright saturday morning. A young boy sat at the red checkered covered table devouring his third helping of oatmeal. Across from him an old man sat reading his newspaper and smoking a cigarette. It was a quiet lazy morning.
"Hey grandpa, when you were a kid there were dinosaurs, right? Did you ride one to school?" the boy curously asked.
"What!?" the old man exclaimed in surprise. Then a smile slowly crept across his careworn face.
" . . . Oh yeah kid!!" he said with a chuckle. "I used to have a pet Tyranasauraus Rex named . . . um . . . let me see . . . Rex . . . yeah thats it he was named Rex. And I would ride him to school almost every single day. And if anyone tried to mess with me he was a goner."
"Wow, Grandpa! That's realy cool!" The boy exclaimed as his eyes looked about to pop out of his head.
"Why of course my boy. And since I lived in the caveman days, we didn't have any shoes."
"That must have been cool! Then you didn't have to worry about getting holes in your socks!"
"It wasn't so great in the snow when you had to walk 10 miles up hill both ways everyday. T-Rexs and snow don't mix very well."
The old man took a long drag on his cigarette. He held the smoke in for a second and slowly exhaled as he contemplated his next move.
"Well kid, let me tell you a story about my childhood. One day the great inventor, Abraham Lincoln was trying to wash his dishes--which had been sitting for two weeks--he discovered that the oatmeal that was stuck on them didn't come off very easily. Thats when he came up with a doozy of an idea.
"'Why should people live in caves when they could build houses of stone. We could use this substance to hold the stones together!' Abe said.
"So he called a town meeting and told everybody his idea. And they all thought that it was a good one. So everyone set to work. Huge pots of oatmeal were cooked up. Ah, I remember the smell so well! If they had added some raisins it would have been just like the ones my mama used to cook for me when I was but a lad! But anyways . . . Rocks were gathered and oatmeal was cooked. Everyone worked together to get it done.It took weeks to build enough houses for everone to live in
"Everyone was happy with their new homes.The women folk set to work right away fixing up the places so that they were just right. Well, everything was going alright when one day Old Brother Jean noticed a loose rock on his wall. Apparently, the ants had started eating away at the oatmeal. Then everyone noticed the same problem. We were unable to contain the problem and the beautiful homes fell apart. Everyone was so mad that Abe had to flee to Mexico where he joined up with Ponce de Leon in search of the Holy Grail."
"Uh . . . grandpa, wasn't Abe Lincoln the president?"
Last revised September 27,2002