I’ve been volunteering with both special needs and neurotypical kids for years, which means any time I’m visiting family or friends and there are children that need to be taken care of, I’m naturally the one left in charge of them. That’s fine with me since I really do love kids and enjoy watching them.

It’s pretty common for children, especially kids with delayed speech development, to be taught some basic sign language to help them express simple concepts without words. I’ve been around kids taught to sign long enough that I’ve picked up all the standard signs through osmosis.

I’m at a pool party at a friend’s house. I’ve offered to keep an eye on one toddler so her mother can get into the pool. The girl is very communicative, babbling nonstop, and surprisingly good with her signs, given her age. At one point, she approaches me, babbling unintelligibly the entire time.

Me: “Did you want something?”

She signs for food.

Me: “You want to eat something?

She nods.

Me: “What did you want to eat?”

The girl takes my finger and pulls me along to where she has been sitting, and I see there is a can of toddler-bite-sized snacks sitting on the table near her. I pick them up and show them to her.

Me: “Is this what you wanted?”

She starts babbling more excitedly, reaching up toward the snack can in what is a clear “I want” gesture regardless of not being a proper sign. I quickly get confirmation from her mother that the girl is allowed to have more before returning to the girl.

Me: “Your mommy said you are allowed to have some. Do you know how to say, ‘Please’?

She signs, “Please.”

Me: “Oh, very good! I’d be happy to help such a nice girl.”

I pour some more snack bites on her plate.

Me: “Do you know how to say, ‘Thank you’?”

Surprisingly, considering how hard it is to teach “thank you” to such young kids, the girl manages a decent approximation of the gesture.

Me: “You’re welcome!”

As I return to my seat, I see one of my friends staring at me as if impressed.

Friend: “You can understand her? That just sounds like gibberish to me.”

I realize he thought I could understand the girl’s constant babbling. I consider telling him the truth but decide that would ruin the fun.

Me: “Yep, that’s me: the baby whisperer.”

For the rest of the day, he would occasionally ask me to “translate” the toddler’s babbling out of curiosity. Instead, I translated what she was probably thinking based on her body language and actions. He never caught on that I couldn’t magically understand babbling.

I was attending a Fourth of July party at a friend’s house years ago. Since I’m a gigantic man-child that loves kids, due to their being closer to my maturity level, I was relegated to watching the kids in the playroom while the proper adults did adulty things. I didn’t know most of the kids there, as they were the family of my friend’s new wife. I’m surprisingly terrible at guessing kids’ ages given how much I hang out with them, but I’d say the kid in this story was probably around six or seven.

Me: “Yeah, I like dinosaurs. They’re awesome. In fact, I was listening to a few of them this morning.”

Kid: “You were? On TV?”

Me: “No, outside, while I was walking to my car to drive here I was watching and listening to some of them.”

Kid: “There are no dinosaurs outside.”

Me: “Sure, there are. They just look a bit different than you’re thinking of.”

Kid: “You’re joking?”

Me: “Nope. The dinosaurs ended up evolving into birds, so whenever you look at a bird, you’re really looking at a flying dinosaur in disguise!”

Kid: “Oh, so you mean they de-evolved?”

Me: “There is no such thing as de-evolving, except in really bad TV shows.”

Kid: “Huh?”

Me: “You think evolving means getting bigger and stronger, right?”

Kid: “Yeah.”

Me: “But that’s not what it means. Evolving means getting better at surviving and having kids. Sometimes the best way to do that is to be bigger and stronger, but sometimes the best way is to get smaller and weaker. But that’s not de-evolving; it’s evolving to be weaker because that’s the best way to survive.”

Kid: “Why would you get weaker?”

Me: “Because then you don’t have to find enough food to feed your big strong body. All the big dinosaurs probably froze or starved to death after a meteor hit the earth, but some of the small ones were able to find ways to survive and find enough food. So being small and not needing as much food was better than being big and strong and starving.”

Kid: “But couldn’t they evolve to not eat as much without getting weaker?”

Me: “Everything costs something. Sometimes animals find ways to evolve to be more efficient, to be better at something without giving anything else up, but usually, animals need to give up something to get better at something else. And usually, being stronger means eating more or taking longer to grow up, but that can be a problem for other reasons.”

Kid: “So they became birds when the meteor hit so they wouldn’t starve?”

Me: “Kind of. There were already dinosaurs that looked a lot like birds today when the others died out. In fact, part of the reason the dinosaur birds survived may have been because they had a beak that was better at getting and eating the kind of food that was left after the meteor. But those dinosaurs continued to change for millions of years before they became the sort of birds you’re used to.”

Kid: “Millions of years?!”

Me: “Yep, I think it was around sixty million years or so, but I’m not really sure.”

Kid: “That’s a long time!”

Me: “Yes, it is, but all that really matters is that those dinosaurs turned into birds. So, now, whenever you hear a bird singing, you should tell your friends you just heard a dinosaur!”

Later that day, once the rest of the guests arrived and the pool party moved out to the pool, I heard the kid talking to his parents.

Kid: “Hey, Dad, did you know birds are dinosaurs?!”

I’ve since attended many parties hosted by this friend; his new wife is very sociable and their mini-mansion with a pool makes a good party location. I’ve run into this same kid many times, and every time since our first conversation he always ends up asking me some sort of question about animals or evolution. I had only meant to mess with the kids a little, but I’m happy to have instead sparked a real interest in learning about evolution and science in a child.

Now I just need to get around figuring out how exactly he’s related to my friend, or perhaps what his name is?

I didn’t have a car when I left for college, so I wasn’t able to travel back to visit my family except when my father came to pick me up for special holidays. Thus, on Thanksgiving, I was looking forward to finally seeing my family again.

When my sister and her family arrived, I was a little surprised to see that my sister was, well, slightly fat. She wasn’t huge, but compared to her usually quite skinny build, it still was noticeable enough to stand out. Not knowing what to do, I pretended not to notice anything and went along with family activities until I managed to corner my mother alone a few hours later.

Me: “Hey, Mom, is there anything interesting about [Sister] you needed to share?”

Mom: “Huh? No, I don’t think so. Why?”

I struggled with how to phrase this delicately.

Me: “Well, she just looked a bit different than usual.”

Mom: “What do you mean?”

Me: “She put on a little weight.”

Mom: “Yeah, but that’s pretty normal when you’re pregnant.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure that counts as something interesting that needs to be shared!”

Mom: “Huh? You knew she was pregnant.”

Me: “No, I didn’t! I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out whether or not she was for the last three hours! I mean, she sort of looks pregnant, but I figured there is no way no one would have told me this long if she was.”

Mom: “We really never told you? Oh, I’m sorry!”

My mother was quite apologetic about their failure to notify me of that little detail. In fact, now, half a lifetime later, my mother still gives every piece of news she shares with me a joking caveat: “Sorry if you’re the last to know.”

I was at work when I saw a fellow coworker was just arriving, so I greeted him.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], what’s up?”

Coworker: “The direction opposite the pull of the weakest of the four fundamental forces within the vicinity in which the direction is referenced.”

Me: “Huh?”

Coworker: “You asked what up was, so I figured I’d explain for you.”

Me: “That’s what all that meant?”

Coworker: “Yep. I have a longer version that includes something about vectoral sums, but that was just too long.”

Me: *Sarcastically* “Oh, yes, obviously. You want to keep your answer nice and short like that first version.”

Coworker: “Exactly!”

For the record, I only managed to type out my coworker’s original answer by making him repeat it for me, slowly, as I was writing this.

A while ago, a friend of mine decided to buy me a pair of sweatpants because I had told her I had trouble finding pants that fit me comfortably. Because she loves the color red, to the point that it’s the only color she wears and most people call her Red, she naturally got me red sweatpants.

They were comfortable. I had few pants that fit me and I don’t care at all about fashion, so I wore them into the office a number of times without much issue. However, one day I wore them, I got cold, so I put on the sweatshirt I keep at the office, which by coincidence was a bright red University of Maryland shirt. The red-on-red combination was a bit of an eyesore, even to my non-existent fashion sense, so I got some good-natured mocking from my peers. I stood by my choice; I’d rather look stupid than be cold!

The next day happened to be May 4th, which, of course, has become almost a holy day to “Star Wars” geeks. I happened to pass a coworker who came into work dressed as Chewbacca as I came in.

Me: “Did you see [Coworker #1]? She’s dressed as Chewbacca.”

Coworker #2: “Yeah, it’s a pretty good costume.”

Me: “So, you think her dressing up as Chewbacca is cool, but I still get made fun of for wearing red sweatpants? That doesn’t seem fair.”

Coworker #2: “You know, you’re right. If she gets to dress up as Chewbacca, then it’s only fair that you should be allowed to dress up as Elmo. I apologize.”

This story is part of the Star Wars Day: May The Fourth roundup!

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