A phone call from my nephew

[xiphias]

Forgot to blog this earlier.

So, yesterday afternoon, the phone rings; I answer it.

"Hello, Uncle Ian."

"Hello, Drew. How are you doing?"

"Uncle Ian, can you do me a favor?"

"Depends what it is. Go ahead and ask."

"Can you answer a question?"

"Sure -- what is it?"

"Why do dragons have gold?"

"I give up -- why do dragons have gold?"

"I don't know. That's why I called."

"OH! I'm sorry. I thought you were asking a riddle. Dragons have gold to sleep on. It's very comfortable for dragons."

"Thank you, Uncle Ian. I love you."

"I love you too, Drew."

His mother, my foster-sister got on the phone then, and explained that Drew and she had been talking, and he'd said that, if HE were a knight, he'd go around and kill dragons and take their gold, and then he started wondering why dragons had gold in the FIRST place. She didn't know; it's not like they ever BUY anything, and so they decided to think of who they knew who WOULD know the answer. After all, they have THIS friend for gardening questions, and they call Leila for marine biology related questions, so they figured that I was the go-to guy for dragon-related stuff.

I'm very grateful to papersky for writing the book that explained this fact about dragons, so I could enlighten my nephew, who was entirely satisfied by this answer and felt it made perfect sense and explained much.

Drew is now reading on a second or third grade level, and has started reading some of his father's manga. The age-appropriate ones -- the other ones aren't anywhere the kids can get to them.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

fiberglass...

runs in the family

[papersky.livejournal.com]

In The Hobbit Smaug has precious things for the joy of acquisition and ownership. In Hambly's Dragonsbane, dragons have gold because it resonates to a frequency that soothes them, especially after they've had it for a while and moved it around, in a feng shui sort of way. I always really liked that. The "It's terribly comfortable, you know..." solution I used in T&C just came to me as I was writing it, without any conscious thinking about it at all.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Also, it tastes de*li*cious!

(Why do you think they keep on needing *more*? They're like guinea pigs...they eat their bedding.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My mother's answer was, "To have something to protect," which is also a good answer, but Drew liked mine (well, yours) best.