It's ALIVE!

Historically, there was a period when magnets looked like they could be the answer to everything... heck, perpetual motion seemed within our grasp, so I don't blame #1 son when he pipes up, from the back of our car, with:

"I've got an idea..."

Now, again, historically (granted, it's personal history, but whatever) that phrase is almost like "I wonder what happens when I shove a fork in a socket?" for stupidity content to follow, but he's still pretty young... you've gotta let them explore.

"Okay..."

"Well, we could run cars with magnets!"

"Ooookay. How would you get that to work?"

"Well, you remember the trains you were talking about? That used magnets...?"

"Electromagnets? And a track?"

"Yeah, I was thinking that a car could lay it's own track, and pull itself along!"

For a while I try to inform him of things like rudimentary physics, and that this line of thinking has been considered before and disregarded as not feasible, but he persists, so I must counter:

"I've got an even better idea... why don't we use crystals!? Crystals have infinite energy for healing and summoning UFOs and stuff, so we should be able to harness such for our vehicles, right?"

"Yeah!"

"NO! Crystals Don't have any inherent energy... they're rocks."

"Well, gold..."

"Gold is just a rock, too."

"What if it was a really big crystal?"

Lord help me, I swear that boy's going to push me to the brink someday. So I make that leap. You know the one... from the uninformed, to the inane, to the ludicrous.

"What about rabbits? We could feed them, and they'd reproduce like mad and we could drive based on how many male rabbits were in the engine compartment."

"What?"

"We could call it 'hare power'."

"Hunh?"

"Maybe smaller rodents, in which case, 'hamster power'."

I felt like busting out with "Turtle Power" right about then, and I probably would've entered full mockery mode if it hadn't been for the fact that he's my kid. I think he's given up on magnets as the cure for all that ails ye (at least I hope so. His pseudo-mom (and I'm not talking about my wife here) probably feeds him all sorts of crap regarding what she knows. It's kind of like getting your religious perspective from Tom Cruise 2 weeks a month.

Not that I'm even bringing up her religious perspective, cuz I'm not sure she's got one.