Tuesday, November 17, 2009

It's the end of the world...

Our school's Thanksgiving luncheon was today. Our parents are invited to come join us, the cafeteria makes special turkey, stuffing, and serves pumpkin flavored ice cream. The after school program decorates the tables and the whole lunch period turns into one large day of happy chaos (or unhappy chaos if you are 5, dislike change, turkey, and ice cream that tastes like pumpkins). I sat myself down between a few of my friends and proceeded to nibble on my fake turkey.

My story teller took one look at me and launched into one of his monologues. It took me a few minutes to figure out what he was talking about since I was carefully investigating my "green beans" and deciding whether or not I was going to set a good example and eat them, or just jump straight to the pumpkin pie.

"God's having the end of the world! 'Cause people are bad. Like they say bad words. So the world is going to be over. There are these satellites in the sky and they show us that the world is ending. ENDING. because some people are bad. You shouldn't be bad. You should be good. So the world wont end. Mmmmm... this turkey is good. I love this turkey! This is my best day. Ever. Where's your camera, Mrs. Lipstick, you should take a picture of me so I can remember this forever. Oh look, a pictuer of a turkey. That's cute. But why does the turkey have to be killed? At my house for Thanksgiving we pray before we eat our dead turkey. Everyone should pray. If we pray maybe the world wont end. Why will the world end, Mrs. Lipstick?"

As I tried to stutter out some sort of a response his Muslim friend, who'd been listening carefully the whole time decided to chime in.

"Now you listen to me, Mrs. Lipstick" he started (I'm working on teaching him to take turns with his friends when he wants to talk). "We pray at my house too. We pray all the time. Do you pray? Does everyone pray?"

I could feel the visiting mothers at the table listening in, waiting to see if I would explain the end of the world, or at least answer talk about prayer. But before I could find the words to give some sort of answer someone leaned over and asked,

"ew. Are you going to eat those green beans Mrs. Lipstick?"

Praise God. Subject changed.

"No. No I am not."

We may have different religions but we can all agree on what to do with the cafeteria's green beans.

1 comment:

Sneaker Teacher said...

I love your stories!