"I don't care about the stupid ducks or the stupid chickens!" I exclaimed as I shoved myself away from the table and stormed off. "It's stupid! It's always stupid!"
Oh, how Truett loved to try to build logic into our family at the dinner table.
"Okay. Here's one for you," he said as we ate our meatloaf and mashed potatoes. "A man has to get a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn across a river. He has a rowboat, and it can only carry him and one other thing."
I rolled my eyes and thought, "NOT AGAIN!" But, Truett continued.
"If the fox and the chicken are left together, the fox will eat the chicken."
By now I'm getting a good visual of this . . . poor chicken, feathers flying in the air and the head in a fox's mouth, blood dripping on the ground. And I take another bite of meatloaf. And Truett continues.
"If the chicken and the corn are left together, the chicken will eat the corn. So what does the man do?"
"Please shoot me now," I thought. "Or better yet, give me a piece of paper and crayons so I can draw it out for God's sake."
You see, I work from the right side of my brain most of the time so do not present me with logic problems because I don't want to be logical. I want to be free, especially at supper!
But night after night logic problems became the 'main course' of the dinner menu. Clay told a friend once, "I hate those ducks! Don't ever eat supper at my house or you will have to answer questions about ducks!" And it scared his friend because all he knew was that ducks had feathers and lived in ponds. So the friend never came to dinner at our house.
Night after night the logic riddles poured out of Truett's mouth.
"There are 2 ducks in front of 2 other ducks. There are 2 ducks behind 2 other ducks. There are 2 ducks beside 2 other ducks. How many ducks are there?"
Clay and I sat there at that dining room table in agony. Meawhile, Merry Jennifer's brain was clicking away, coming up with the right answer. And all I'm thinking was, "Give me paper and crayons and let me draw it out!"
Truett tried to make us all logical, bless his heart. But some people are born differently and work mostly from the right side of the brain.
I miss you, Truett. You and your silly logic problems. But I still loved you even though you frustrated me. And hey, by the way . . . I still don't care about the chickens or the ducks!
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