Rationalism Meets Plausible Deniability at the Wendy's Drive-Through

My older brother and I, in our youth (and probably well beyond) represented two entirely different ways of pursuing our priorities when they departed from the prevailing agenda. He was the first-born, and very deeply invested in the existing order of our childhood world, whether that status quo happened to be a few Irish-American old ladies, or Mrs. Thibeault the music teacher, etc., etc. I was third-born, and had rather less to gain or lose from the established paradigm, and so my way of pursuing what I wanted involved a combination of evasion, obfuscation and outright insubordination. So we were basically the statesman versus the revolutionary; the campaigner versus the obstructionist, etc.

And lo these 40 years later, there are two boys named Ian and Daniel...

Last Sunday, I had the boys in my car, and Amy and Madeleine were in the mini-van, coming home from church. This two-car-solution freed me up to do something that Amy wouldn't have been "on board with," and I knew the boys wouldn't have a problem with it, since it meant French fries for them. (French fries are a recurrent theme in our world.)

I didn't announce our side-trip to the boys; I let them figure it out as I hit the drive-through. I knew everything they were going to say, practically, before it was uttered, including the inevitable, quickly-granted request for French fries. But there was a portion of dialog that I hadn't anticipated, especially because it began with Daniel having fleeting-but-authentic pangs of conscience, somehow:

Daniel: Did Mommy say we could go here?

Me: No.

Daniel: We'll hide it from her, then.

Ian: Daniel! She didn't say we couldn't!

Somehow, it's all a bit like the blue and red lenses of a pair of 3D sunglasses; if only half of the perspective were in place, the strategy wouldn't work nearly as well.

(February 5, 2012)