The Explanation Mutated Into Something Else

(My eight-year-old daughter is very inquisitive, and loves science. One day, she and my wife get into a discussion about how a woman has just X-chromosomes, and it’s the father that will pass either an X or a Y-chromosome for determining what gender a baby will be. My wife and I are also big sci-fi/comic book fans.)

Daughter: “Daddy, do you know why I am a girl?”

Me: *amused* “Why don’t you tell me?”

Daughter: “It’s because you passed mommy an X-gene!”

Me: “[Daughter], if I passed an X-gene to you, our lives would be a whole lot more interesting…”