Time for Bed.

But not without adding a couple of lines here.

J, the night gaurd, usually shows off pictures of his little baby (four year old) daughter, the most angelic bit of a girl you've ever seen. Had the privelege of meeting her by accident today, and had a pretty interesting conversation. It started off with her asking me if I wasn't going to spend Christmas with my mommy, like she was going to.

"No" I told her. "My mum lives abroaaaoood" I pronounced this last word loud and clear, hoping to teach her a new word and thus pass on the legacy that is Me. She stares at me for a while, and gets this smile - I don't know what kind of smile it was, but I know I use it all the time, and now I know why I should stop - and says: "My grandpa is in Heaven. He's an angel. And when people are in Heaven, they close their eyes."

(Now there's just something so not right about pouring your heart and misery out to a four year old and they go and top your sob-story witha story about their dead grandfather.)

"That's right," I replied. "Their eyes are closed because they're....okay, they're resting", I replied, assuming she'd seen an open casquet and hoping that this conversation would not go on. So she smiles even more mysteriously(?), this twinkle in her eye. Needless to say, the situation was not very comfortable. How much did she know? How much should I say? She went on: "Old people go to the hospital, and then they close their eyes, and SOMETIMES THEY HAVE BABIES."

Dear God in Heaven. My very own Mini-Me. Only a little more coherent and a little less morbid. I didn't know whether to laugh or not, you laugh at the wrong pitch and the little kid will always remember you that evil woman who laughed at her. Plus you're given a couple of freebees when she's writing her memoires later on : you're portrayed as that hook-nosed lady with the beady little eyes who occasionally ate the neighbourhood children. "A fie on her!" she'll write. A fie indeed.

I wasn't ready to get fied, so I just looked away and commented some big red neon sign we were passing. And that's the good thing about four year olds. They'll slide from a conversation about existential questions to Neon signs on any given day. Versatile little critters.