Three-Year-Old Logic

So, I have a cold again, or maybe still, not quite sure. It’s never really left all winter. Just when I start feeling better, here it comes again. This time it’s returned with a vengeance. Coughing, itchy and watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose and then a stopped up nose, sinus pressure, sore throat, the whole bit. I’m sure I don’t need to describe what a cold is like—at least not to most people.

However, my three-year-old grandson seemed to have a little confusion over it. We were in the grocery store last night and he wanted me to push him really fast in the cart. When I said I didn’t have the energy to run because I had a cold, he instantly offered to warm me up. He rubbed his hands over my arms and shoulders and then asked if I was still cold.

I explained that I wasn’t really cold; that what I’d meant was I was sick. That turned out to be a mistake. His next questions were, “Do you need to go to the hospital? Are you dying?”

I told him I would be fine, that it was just a cold. And then tried again (unsuccessfully) to explain what a cold was. He gave me a look that said he thought I was perhaps sicker than I’d realized: talking in circles and not making any sense.

Later at home, as I sat in the chair and watched while he played, he suddenly asked, “Are you okay?” I must have looked as miserable as I felt but I assured him I was fine. He said, “You’re not cold anymore?”

Again, I went through what a cold was and that it didn’t necessarily mean someone was cold when they said they had a cold. “Oh,” he said, as if it all made perfect sense now. Then immediately he asked, “So why is it called a cold then?”

I remember wondering that myself when I was a kid. I shrugged. “Just to make people like you ask questions, I guess.”

“Grandpa,” he said, with a stern look. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is an answer,” I said. “Maybe not a good one but I don’t want to try explaining anything else tonight.”

“Because you have a cold?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking we were right back where we’d started. I’m not sure the night was all that productive in the learning category! ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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