Careful… Kids Can See The Real You

I work in a pottery painting studio inside a children’s museum (not a DIY studio, this one is staff-run and curated, mainly for school trips).

A dad is standing at the counter with his son, holding a ceramic frog with uneven globs of blue paint all over it.

Dad: “This looks… like something exploded in a Smurf factory. Can we just have one of the staff repaint it before it’s fired?”

Me: “Oh, sorry, we don’t alter the kids’ work. The idea is that they make it themselves and take it home, just like they painted it.”

Dad: “Right, but he’s four. He won’t remember. And I don’t want to be stuck displaying… this.”

Kid: *Very seriously.* “It’s not a frog. It’s you. On the inside.”

There is a beat of silence while the dad just stares at it. Then he looks at me like I am supposed to say something.

Me: “…Hey, at least he didn’t say it’s the outside?”

He bought the not-frog.