Habeas Candy

The circumstances of this evening compelled me to think, for better or worse, about the boys' future careers, and particularly about the wholesome world of law practice.

Ian was wonderfully lawyer-like in his handling of the Andover Candy Crisis of 2013.  On the way back from the boys' Russian Math class (in Andover), I humored them and stopped at a variety store.  Ian immediately knew what he wanted:  a king size package of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, with Daddy and a bit of communalism in mind.  Daniel wanted two smallish packages of gummy bears.  I was ready to get them, but Ian was having none of it; there was no way that Daniel was going to acquire two units of a candy that contains dye that Mommy won't let Ian have (for some reason, Daniel apparently doesn't have the same behavioral reactions to certain surrealishly-bright dyes that Ian does).  So Daniel got one package - still over Ian's protests.  And then we were off to the Court of Corolla to determine how the estate should be divided up.

Ian had a simple plan in mind:  we get the king size Reece's Peanut Butter Cups and split them three ways - each passenger gets one-and-one-third of the four peanut butter cups in the king size package.  But Daniel's self-serving gummy-bear-grab threw a terrible monkey-wrench into the formula.  Ian was not going to share his peanut butter cups, because, in fact, Daniel had gotten something that he *can't* share with Ian.

Daniel proceeded to broker a much more nuanced compromise, where he gives me a few gummy bears and Ian gives me some peanut-butter-cup portion, and then Ian gives Daniel a peanut-butter-cup (or maybe more) as well.  Ian was beside himself:  this would mean that Daniel would have to share about 1/5 of his gummy bears with me, but Ian would have to share 1/4 of his peanut butter cups with Daniel.  Meanwhile, I was like Belgium in World War I or Poland in World War II - everyone wants to defend my interests, but the defense is of dubious practical value.  What does Daddy really want?  "Daddy doesn't care!" Daniel asserted.  I re-phrased it with, "I'm happy either way."  Somehow, the thing ended with me getting some gummy bears and a peanut butter cup (Ian offered me two); I somehow convinced Ian to give Daniel a peanut butter cup, and Ian, rather than eating them in the car, as he originally had planned, decided to postpone the splurge (I think by a minimal-but-symbolic delay of about ten minutes).

This made me appreciate what a natural lawyer we have in the house.  As I always say, Mommy, the "professional" lawyer, is really something of an amateur up against Attorney McDershowitz, as I call him.

Then later that night, more litigation kicked in.  Amy was teaching her class, and I had to put the kids to bed, and they all wanted to sleep in the same room.  The Master Bedroom is off limits - too cold, and they all had the croop last week.  So Madeleine wanted us to sleep in her room, but then Daniel wanted us to sleep in his.  Ian argued that he *can't* sleep in Daniel's room (Amy's convinced that Daniels terribly non-organic mattress makes Ian have allergic outbreaks), but Daniel didn't want to sleep in Madeleine's room.  I didn't know what to make of the whole thing, but I was weighing out the prospect of everyone sleeping in Daniel's room before the good barrister provided his closing coup de grace:  "Doesn't "can't" overrule"don't want to"?

Yes, he said "overrule."  And he lined up two competing degrees of desire/necessity, with crystal clarity, and established, in six Germanic words, that Ian's necessity trumped Daniel's fleeting whim beyond a reasonable doubt.

Somehow, Counsel himself broke through the red tape, even after such a strong closing statement, by proposing that everyone sleep in his own room, rather than Daniel's or Madeleine's.  All parties consented, and went to sleep not long afterwards.

At that point, though, I told Ian something to the effect that he should just go straight to law school now.  Ian said that he had been thinking about law school, since he's pretty good at it.  He wanted to know if lawyers make a lot of money.

I wasn't going to lie, but in mid-sentence, I grabbed onto a hopeful diversion:  "Yes - but doctors make more!"  I'd certainly rather have Ian treat people than sue them, for a living.  I didn't bother to mention that Mommy doesn't make much money; she's the exception that proves the rule, and he would eventually see through that microcosmic detail.

Meanwhile, Daniel wanted to know if teachers make a lot of money.

"Not really."

"How much do they make?"

I didn't want to quantify it, and you really can't, factoring in geography and individual school districts.  But Daniel quickly cut to the measure of wealth that really matters: "Enough to get a DS in three or four days?"

Yes, we define affluence in terms of how many days' labor would be required to acquire the very video game gizmo that Daniel keeps lobbying for us to buy him.

Although we all worry about our children's futures, I never really worry about the same things when I think about Ian and Daniel side by side.

(October 22, 2013)