NPR is Bad for Your Sanity

I was driving home from work the other day, listening to NPR on the radio with the boys in the back seat. No one was talking; we were just listening. It had been a long, rainy day for everyone and Jackson was clearly a bit tired. I don't really remember what the NPR story was about, but at one point they said the word "clerk". I think maybe they were referring to a County Clerk somewhere. When Jackson heard that, he asked me what the word "clerk" meant. I told him it was someone that takes your important papers and keeps them for you. I mean, really, how do you explain what a clerk is to a 3 year old? Then Jackson asked if a clerk is a good guy or a bad guy. I said "good guy". Well, as soon as I said that, Jackson started to cry and declare that a clerk is NOT a good guy if he takes your papers. Only bad guys take people's papers. Then he tearfully announced that he doesn't like clerks and that he didn't want a clerk to take his papers. He said that if someone makes a paper for someone else, a clerk can't just come and take it from them because it wasn't for him. He carried on for a few minutes, all the while I'm trying not to make him cry more by laughing at him. I know, I'm cruel, but it was funny as hell. He stopped crying long enough to argue with me about who was right about whether clerks are bad guys - me or him. I finally stopped trying to correct him and let him have the last word - that clerks are bad guys because they take your important papers that you didn't make for them.