The continuing saga of text messages between me and my now 5 month old daughter.
EDIE: Ugh! Is winter over yet?
POP: What do you care? Is your magical kingdom of carefully controlled weather too perfect for you? Is it your own personal space heater or your fluffy, downy clothing that's bothering you?
EDIE: Geez. You're a little snappy today.
POP: I'm sorry, baby. You're right. I'm just a little cranky from this job I'm working at right now.
EDIE: Why? And I'm only asking because I'm super bored. The rattle thing you gave me is broken.
POP: Did you rattle it?
EDIE: Did I rattle the rattle? No, because that makes no sense. You don't car a car. You don't whale a whale.
POP: By that logic, yes. You're correct. But in this case, you do.
EDIE: Fine. I'll try it. Oh, my gosh! The noise is back!
POP: Half the time I think you're a genius, and half the time I think you're just a regular baby.
EDIE: I'm a genius. No thanks to you. Now explain winter to me, dummy.
POP: Well, because you asked nicely. As the earth orbits the sun, it tilts away from the direct rays of sunlight-
EDIE: BORING! This story sucks.
POP: Fine. You want to hear the real story of winter? The story I promised your Mom I would never tell any babies because it would scare the blubber right off of them?
EDIE: Yes! Tell me it!
POP: I don't know. I mean technically, you're a baby. And I promised.
EDIE: I'll never tell! I can't even say one word!
POP: Alright. But don't blame me if you get bad dreams.
EDIE: Oh, I already have bad dreams. I watched Hoarders with Mom. Please, please don't become hoarders. I don't want to be covered in a tidal wave of garbage or Barbie legs.
POP: No hoarding. Done. Alright, so The True Story of Winter.
EDIE: I'm so excited.
POP: Way back, way before Hoarders or milkshakes, way before platonic love or double jointedness, the world only had two seasons: Summer and Summer Vacation.
EDIE: That's what I want. Let's make a time machine.
POP: Everyone was happy. It was like LA without all the d-bags. Smiling was the norm and everyone wore linen.
EDIE: I already sense impending doom.
POP: You are correct. Because during one fateful Summer Vacation, out of the sky descended the first terrors of planet earth. Space yetis.
POP: Double eek. The space yetis hated the warm balminess of forever summer earth. They started shooting all the humans with icicle guns and they brought their giant snow machines to cover places like Norway and Michigan. Thus making the very first glaciers.
EDIE: Monsters!
POP: But the humans fought back. With gifts of hot tubs and lattes, but the space yetis were too powerful. There was the Great Ice Cube Slaughter of France. The Great Gradual Hypothermia Because No One Owned Anything But T-Shirts Thing of New Zealand. The Great Cars Being Too Cold to Turn Over Incident of Korea.
EDIE: The horror! I'm almost too scared to go on.
POP: But then Tommy Colt and Larry Gatling created the first guns. The space yetis drove a peaceful, lazy earth populace to create their first real weapons. It was their first war. And the humans drove back the space yetis unto the brink of extinction but those dastardly aliens had one more trick. An ice drill.
EDIE: They're mad. Mad!
POP: They ice drilled to the center of the earth where they filled it with ball bearings thus upsetting the earth's perfect balance. Now it shifts every six months. Causing winter.
EDIE: And that's true? The whole thing? I won't be embarrassed later in life if I date a scientist?
POP: Totally true. I would never lie to you.
EDIE: What happened to the yetis?
POP: They live in the frozen wastelands of Patagonia. Plotting. Waiting. Repopulating.
EDIE: That was the best story ever. Thanks. I'm going to take a nap now.
POP: Wait until you hear about how the Moon is an escaped planetoid on the lam from the Space Police.
EDIE: I knew there was something shady about the moon. Thanks, Pop. I feel very secure that I'm going grow up armed with truth and knowledge.
POP: I'm going to be in so much trouble with your Mom.
