Brain Cells

While chatting with a dear friend of mine this morning she made a comment about missing brain cells. This brought to mind one of my favorite stories ‘The Things Kids Say’ or ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ my #2 son is the star of this story.

Mom bragging rights here I must first give you a little back-ground on my son. In 5th grade he was reading on an 11th grade level. In 8th grade he took the college SAT tests and passed with flying colors… Yes, he was and is SMART.

He does however tend to be more ‘book smart’. A common ‘joke’ in the family was; give him a list of three things to do and he’ll be lucky if he remembers one on the list.

One day driving down a Texas road north of Houston with my bright son riding along he made a major announcement. “Mom, I figured it out!”

Naturally I had no idea on earth what he had figured out as until then he had been quiet – deep in thought.

Before I could ask what he had figured out he went on to explain. “You know how I always forget things? Well, when you tell me to do something I don’t want to lose it so I put it in a room in my brain. You know we have little rooms in our brain. Well, I know it’s important when you tell me to do something so I lock the door to the room so I don’t forget it.”

He had my total attention but I had to pay attention to the road too. Trying not to laugh but certainly wanting to hear the rest of his discovery I responded, “Ok.”

“Well, there’s this little man running around in my head and he steals the keys to the doors. That’s why I can’t remember things. It’s the little man’s fault.”

An eight year old solved a major problem in the world, forgetfulness. It’s those little men in our heads running round. Not the million distractions of life, not ignoring what people tell us, and certainly not old age. Now if he could just figure out how to get them out of our brains. Our brain cells would work just fine!


He and the little man in his head now serve the United States Air Force!