50-Yard Stare

So, I was in Iowa this weekend. We had a family picnic for my dad's side of the family on Saturday and the place was awash with spawn.

It was crazy hot - 93° and HUMID - and we found that it was best to sit in the shade outside the shelter-thingy (which had about a dozen fans whirring)

I was sort of watching my sister's spawn (and one or two or thirty other kids) with several of my cousins or cousins' wives from a picnic table on a hill which gave us a pretty good view of most of the park (it was HUGE with lots of really cool stuff including a neat wooden "treehouse" with a slide and a rope bridge and other stuff that make me really wish I were a little kid again!)

There was also a pond. The pond was downhill from us and part of it was obscured by a small knoll. This spot, of course, was where several of the children (including Little E and the E-man) kept wandering off to.

We told them repeatedly to stay away from the water (it was shallow, but covered in a lot of ropey algae) but every time we took our eyes off them, they were right back at the water's edge.

The fourth time this happened, I caught my cousin's son and the E-man poking sticks at snails and took the E-man aside.

E3: I told you not to go down there any more.
E-man: (pointing at his cousin) He started it!
E3: And you finished it. I told you not to and you did it anyway.
E-man: (silence)
E3: Listen, we aren't telling you not to go there because we're mean or because we don't want you to have fun. We're telling not to go there because it's dangerous. If you fall in you could get caught in the plants and drown. We love you and we don't want you to get hurt.
E-man: (silence - with a blank expression)

I'm pretty sure this is what he heard:

E3: "Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah we're mean Blah Blah Blah we don't want you to have fun Blah Blah Blah..."

Sigh.