abu & rabad

One morning, I was reading a Hardy Boys’ adventure to Abu. There’s a part where the Hardy boys visit the mansion of a rich man. When they’re about to leave, the rich man asks them to stay for some more time – he wants company; he gets very lonely in the mansion alone.

“What’s ‘lonely’, Pappa,” wondered Abu.

“Lonely means he feels alone and bored. He lives alone in the mansion, that’s why he is lonely.”

“He lives alone? Where are his wife and children?” Abu wanted to know.

“I think he’s not married.”

“How can that be? He is a rich man!” Abu declared.

Where did that come from, I wondered. I decided to poke and prod a little bit more, on the theory that it is always good to know where your children are getting their knowledge from – always research the competition.

“You think all rich men are married?”

“Yes, it is very easy for them to find girls.”

O…K… I wonder who’s teaching him this stuff. This needs to be stopped.

“Really? Who said that?” I inquired.

“On TV,” he said, with an air of obviousness around him.

I’m fairly certain that I know what TV programs my kids watch, and I couldn’t think of anything that would be teaching kids something like this. Certainly, they’re not watching any dating game shows, any variation of “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire,” or The Millionaire Matchmaker.

“On, TV?” I asked dubiously, “Which show?”

“Tom and Jerry,” said Abu, and went on to describe some episode where Tom and Jerry and some dog and some other cat are all interested in dating some girl, and for that reason they’re trying to get some money, or gold, or something. I don’t remember the exact details. I wasn’t really paying attention to the story, partly because he rambles when he’s telling a Tom and Jerry story, and partly because I was already composing this blog post in my head.