Toy boxes

One of the few pleasures of living away from home is the times I return to see how things are getting along without me. Last week I decided it was time to make the pilgrimage again. After being there just a short while, I realized that everything was in good hands, and, as usual, my five year-old brother dominated the scene.

Five-year olds have such an unconscious insight into adults and how they live. Sometimes it is frightening, to say the least. But, dodging the paranoia, I thought it would do me some good to talk to the boy to see how things had been while I was away.

He was not in sight when I got home, but deducing that he would more likely be in the playroom than the library, I went in there to find him. I came very close to breaking my neck as I stumbled over the toys which were strewn about the room. At first, I thought the room had been ransacked, but then I spied my brother in one corner frantically going through his toy box. "Hey," I called, "you're gonna kill someone if you don't quit throwing your toys around here!" He just looked at me as if I had committed an unforgivable sin, but being ignorant of the ways of a five-year old, and determined, with all my adult naiveté, to find out what was going on, I persisted.

"Whatcha looking for, sport?"

"My fire truck."

"Any particular reason?"

"No, I know it's in here though, so I wanna find it."

"You sure you didn't leave it somewhere? Outside maybe? Or up in your room?"

"Nah, all my toys are in here."

"It must make things pretty rough to get at – all those toys in one box and all. No wonder you can't find anything. Everything is just piled in here on top of each other. You're gonna break them all, if you keep this up."

"Well, Mommy says I gotta keep them all here. She says if I don't I'll lose them. But I still can't find my fire truck."

"Want some help?"

"No. Oh! I found it! I found it!"

Sure enough, out from beneath the ton of debris in the box, he pulled his fire truck. It seemed rather small and not worth the search, but I guess to him it was, and off he ran, leaving me sitting there amidst his mess. Many people think that young children can teach adults a great deal, and my experience with my brother bears this out. It was a lesson well worth learning. But I'm going to have to sit and rummage through my mind though and find out exactly what it is.