Educating Justin

Last week at the rodeo Justin handed me the program and, showing me a cartoon, asked me, "Daddy what does this say?"

I was distracted, so I didn't look closely at the picture, but at some unconscious level it registered that it was Tonto and The Lone Ranger. I read Tonto's words to Justin, "Kemosabe, Silver has Yellow Tail."

"What does that mean?"

I looked more closely at the drawing of Tonto displaying Silver's tail for The Lone Ranger's inspection and discovered that Justin had found an ad for Hi-Ho Silver, a product intended to address the problem of mares getting urine-stained tails, a problem, I dare say, that until that moment neither Justin nor I had ever considered before.

Then last weekend Justin went shopping with his mom. Among their stops was a trip to the lawn and garden supply store to see whether they could find any products to get rid of the moles that are tearing up the lawn. (I hadn't suggested calling Dog-Gone.) They found Shake Away Powder, which, it turns out, is a granular form of fox and bobcat urine, the notion being that moles will be driven off effectively by the scent of their natural predators.

It's not clear why Kathy didn't buy any Shake-Away Powder, but when she got home and again saw the mole holes she had another idea. She must have assumed that Justin was also a natural predator to moles because she offered to let him relieve himself on the mole hole.

Of course, he giggled with delight at the thought, but doubted her sincerity. But sure enough, she told him to go right ahead, and with a little bit of reassurance he did. Kevin discovered something unusual was going on so he went out to discover what it was and Justin eagerly explained it to him. So of course Kevin had to join in. And before long Andrew as well.

I don't think my family's little experiment worked, but I did warn the boys not to be surprised if the moles retaliated by urinating on their soccer and basketballs if they leave them out.