robot

the smaller supernatural nephew calls to talk to guthrie. these conversations are elaborate, filled with squeals and raspy breathing and small howls. the child translates what the dog says for his parents. he knows they don't know a thing about dog language. this is his third language and he slides around in it easily, hears it like it is his own.

initially, the conversation is about how the dog will visit the child and how they will go to a restaurant. i do not know how often the child has seen lady and the tramp or whether he has seen it at all, but his fascination with dogs eating in restaurants, especially restaurants serving pasta, is keen. he and the dog chat back and forth and then there's a gasp and a pause and his voice, small on the far end of the line, yells up to his parents about how the dog says the sweetie and i are getting the child a robot for his birthday. that dog is pretty smart, i tell you. i hadn't even realized we were going to get the kid a robot but dogs rarely lie and this one never does and he very clearly says we're getting a robot for the child.

so i have begun searching the interweb for robots. real ones. nonplastic ones. metal ones with sparks shooting out from behind eyes or smoke billowing from mouths. i know right off a real live vintage 1950s robot is a no no. those things are out of our price range but are also tipped with rust and razor edged. they are talcum spewing fire hazards. but reproductions of the very same beasts are brand new with smooth edges and they still have sparks shooting from their eyes. glorious. and every one of them has this big, fat warning sign right next to the ordering button: caution. collector's item only! not for small children!

now, how small is a small child? this one on the other end of the phone line will be three. he is big enough to know not to swallow a tiny loose part. he is big enough to know to find an adult if the sparking eyes should catch the drapes on fire. and if the thing should stomp itself right out a window, he would know to run downstairs to rescue it rather than to follow it out from the upper floor. but he does talk to a small dog on the phone. and they do talk an awful lot about pasta.

still, a boy cannot survive childhood without either a robot or a dog. this boy's dog is halfway across the country so i suppose he needs a robot nearby. and so far i've found at least one robot for children over four. you have to remember he is supernatural. three is how old he is on the outside. his alter ego is three. i'm sure that on the inside, the real part of him with the telepathy and the flying powers, he's at least four. maybe even five.