Monday, October 25, 2004

Another Family Dinner

We're having dinner. As a family.

"What do dinosaurs do?" Eli 3.2 asks.

"They work for the city," I say helpfully.

Gloria ignores me. Generally, this is the best thing to do. "They're extinct, so they're not around anymore," she says. "But when they were still here, they'd eat, and play, and sleep, and sometimes they'd fight." Bor-ing. No wonder they left.

Eli eats two mouthfuls of rice, then puts down his spoon.

"But what do they do for the city?" Eli asks.

"Well, they work as meter maids," I say.

"But what are meter maids?" he asks.

"People have to pay money to park their cars downtown on the street. Meter maids walk by and check to make sure that they've paid. If they haven't paid, the dinosaur eats their car."

It's not my fault that this isn't strictly accurate. There are possibly thousands of parallel universes out there, each slightly different than the rest. In many of these universes, the meteor strike that destroyed the dinosaurs never happened. I believe that in at least one of these universes, dinosaurs and humans live and work side-by-side.

Of course they're meter maids. Why would a human take that job when we can get a dinosaur to do it?

Employing dinosaurs as meter maids would be highly effective. The headline in the Metro section of the newspaper:
Meter Maids Masticate, Ate Eight Near Town Lake
Parking violations down 90%, commissioner says

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