Morning Debates

I’ve learned more about debate and carefully honed arguments at home than I ever did in debate or logic classes. This morning provides an example.

Since I am out of school at the moment, Kadie is picking up some day shifts so that she can be home a couple of evenings this week. In typical morning habit, after Scooter’s daily encounter with the monster, I took Skeeter up to her school. (We live .9 miles from the school and you must live at least 1 mile to ride the bus.)

Squealer, roused from his bed at the last second, is blinking stupidly from the back seat when the following discussion takes place.

Skeeter: “Squealer, are you tall or little?”

I don’t point out to her that, strictly speaking, these categories are not binary opposites.

Squealer continues to sit and blink.

Skeeter: (Louder this time) “Squealer, are you tall or little?”

Squealer slowly looks at her. After a second he says “I’m little.”

“No, you’re tall.” Skeeter replies.

Squealer, now roused from his somnambulance, begins to shout “I’M NOT TALL. I’M LITTLE!”

Skeeter waits quietly and thinks for a minute. Then she says:

Skeeter: “You're taller than a stump.”

Squealer sits in stunned silence, evidently trying to figure out what a stump is.

Skeeter “And you’re taller than concrete, and taller than a person who has tripped.”

Squealer responds to this barrage of logic by leaning back in his seat and sitting motionlessly. Skeeter stares at him waiting for his next argumentative rejoinder. When no verbal riposte comes, she sits back in her seat with a smile.

Mercifully we arrive at her school and she gets out of the minivan and skips triumphantly to class.