Why Children Should Not Visit the Office

Clara is in my office now and she really wants to use the computer.  She does not seem to believe that I need the computer for work, insisting that since I was just reading a book anyway, that she should be allowed to use the computer to check all the valuable web pages she would normally be perusing were she at home doing something other than being in the pool--which web pages you ask?  Good question.  I know she would want to use Facebook, having decided to imitate Lily (not Emma) in this respect.  What else?  I think she looks at Yahoo! news, but I doubt she reads any of the articles on it.  What else--I'll ask her:  her reply. "Hmmm............I use......I use....Well, I usually just check my e-mail and then I go on Facebook and then I go on Facebook some more and then I check my e-mail again and then I get off."  You can see why she needs to use my computer so much.

At any rate, I figured if I started typing, then maybe she would stop annoying me about wanting to use the computer.  But, it isn't working.  Instead, she is just telling me all the words I have spelled incorrectly. (I spell a lot of words incorrectly because I never learned how to type.  I wish I had learned how to type.  Now it is too late.  Clara just asked if I was spelling words incorrectly on purpose.  I wish I was.  But, really, I just don't know how to type.  I am a pretty fast typist, if one ignores the fact that about a third of the words are spelled incorrectly.)

At this point, one is wondering why Clara is on my office at all.  I am wondering that too.  She wandered in like a stray puppy.  Not really--I would kick the stray puppy out of my office, but she just stayed here.  She says she just wanted to go for a walk and that is why she is here, but then I wonder why if she wanted to be walking she is just sitting in my office asking if she can use my computer. 

And, lest you think she walked from home, she didn't.  She was supposed to be over at the South Hadley Farmer's market across the street helping Janet with her plant sale, but I think she got bored because, as she says, "She didn't need help.  She has no customers."  Poor Janet.  It is hot here today, and Janet is standing outside at a Farmer's Market  which normal people are avoiding because, well, it is really hot here today.  I'll have to be extra nice to Janet tonight.

Clara thinks I should end the blog post now because she wants the computer.  Apparently this furious display of typing has not convinced her that I have vital work which needs to be done and thus she can't use the computer.  Now Clara is really starting to whine.  Seriously, she can be a very whiny kid.  Hey, she is leaving!  Finally I will get some peace and quiet around here.  I shouldn't have written that; she just said she wasn't leaving after all.  Sigh.

So how about a book review.  We will review a book that Clara read:  *If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period*.  Her review:  "It was good....It was interesting, I suppose."

Now I understand why Clara does not have a blog.  I liked the title of that book, by the way, because it gave me a chance to talk to Clara about that age-old question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there will it make a sound?  Clara thinks that nobody knows the answer to that question.  I tried to explain that it doesn't make a sound, but she was unconvinced.  I don't think she likes the idea of silently falling trees.  Somehow, it seems unnatural to her, which is odd since she has never experienced a tree falling with nobody around (nobody has ever experienced that), so why is there a presumption of a naturally occurring sound in a case which has not been experienced?  Why does the existence of sound when a person is nearby trump the existence of lack of sound if there is nothing there? 

Clara just realized that if there was a video camera there, then it could record the sound.  Sigh.  Sometimes I think they should cancel summer vacation.  Now she is trying to explain that video cameras also record sound, but I think she just doesn't know the difference between video and audio. She is really annoyed that I just wrote that, by the way--she says she does too know the difference.

So, is there a moral lesson from Clara's visit to the office?  Of course there is.  In fact, there are dueling morals:

Clara's Moral:  You should get on the computer before your Dad writes about you.

My Moral:  Every event in life is filled with the opportunity to let your mind wander over matters Important and Unimportant, and the Recording of Said Events will be of Absolutely no Interest to Posterity, but that does not Stop People like Your Humble Narrator from Occupying the blogosphere with Posts such as this One which serve no Redeeming Social Value other than being (at best) a Clever Postmodern Commentary on the vacuous nature of the Blog.