We had hot dogs for dinner today, pretty darn good ones. My daughter Rita had two, and so when she of notoriously-bigger-than-tummy eyes asked for another, I decided to cut one in half for her.
My son, busily munching on his own looked up with as-big-as-his-sister’s-tummy eyes and said, “Papa, I’ve got an idea!”
(Of course, what he actually said was, “Papa, iikoto wo omoitsuita!”)
He explained that if we keep cutting the hot dog in half, we can have 2 and then more and more hot dogs from just one.
The fun didn’t last when I pointed out that the pieces would also be getting gradually smaller and smaller. He quickly saw the light, but I felt bad and decided to try and bring him back around to the ancient philosophers’ sense of wonder.
I said, “You know, if I throw this half of the hot dog at you it has to go half the distance to you, and then half way again and again and again, so even if I throw it, it might never hit you.”
He looked at me for a moment and said, “You shouldn’t throw that, Rita wants to eat it.”