Ministry for Family Security (a day on which a boy informs on his older brother).

A four-year old walks down a lonely road.

“…do you remember that one time when he was sitting on the toilet,”
the boy asked me as we walked behind the cyclists; one of whom was the figure of interest being referred to,
”…and do you remember that he dropped a LEGO in the toilet?”

”Yes, I remember,” I said. “There’s been a lot of things that have fallen into a lot of places, but for reasons I won’t go into, I will simply tell you that Yes, I do remember that.”

”Oh.”
He said.
“I remember too. He dropped the LEGO in the toilet on purpose. He did it on purpose, Daddy.”

He delivered the information and skip-marched ahead; and I paused, both in body and mind, to absorb this information.

I do not know what I will do with it, and this incident is far in the past, but not far enough for the long arm of my memory to snatch it from history and plop it in a certain older brother’s head at some point in the future.

Should, of course, this information be accurate. It’s always important to verify your sources.

But one thing I know is this:

Kids don’t lie.

Kidding.

Of course they do, though it’s often not in the brutal characterization of “lies,” but rather existing in the nebulous no-person’s land of memory reconstruction, contextual remembering, fabricating reality ex post facto, as children across the world watched our 45th President do daily, and sometimes, sometimes…

…flat out making up a good story because it’s salacious, delicious, and too entertaining not to pass along.

How did the LEGO piece end up in the toilet? We’ll never know for sure. But one thing is certain:

I’ll never give up trying to get to the bottom of it.

——