I love Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts”—especially this one:
One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take mylittle nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. “Oh no”, I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.
Man was I thinking of that the other day when we & the lads walked (and walked, and walked) through the mall en route to the super-pneumatic, hyperkinetic promised Bouncy Land—only to discover that it was closed & padlocked!
Poor Hen cried & cried. We felt terrible, but don’t despair: We almost immediately located another “jump-around place,” drove there and had a ball (actually 300 balls, as the boys tried to force-feed me the contents of a ball pit). Henry was delighted, gleefully announcing, “I’m making myself a new chair, and it’s gonna be called ‘Your Face!!’” All’s well that ends with Dad-O at the bottom of a well. 😉