Mary Smith sat in her living room, enjoying a nice sunny October weekend afternoon in Chicago, lounging around on the couch, reading a magazine. Her 7-year-old son John was playing with some toys; a race track set with many trucks and cars.
"Vroom! Vroom, vroom!" he shouted, as he rolled one of the cars along. It slid across the floor, out of his control, and hit his mother's foot.
"Oh, John, be more careful," she said, standing up and returning the car to him.
A few more minutes passed, with him excitedly cheering, "Vroom!" and sliding the cars along. Another one escaped him, again hitting Mary's foot. "Dear, if you're not going to control these, I'm going to have to send you to your room," she admonished him.
"Okay, Mom," he said, as he excitedly ran the cars around the racetrack again.
Mary went back to her reading, only to be interrupted a few minutes later by a third car hitting her foot.
"That's it!" she cried, walking over to John and his toys. She looked at him sternly, stuck her arm out, and pointed down the hallway.
John pouted and stood up. He dejectedly took two steps towards his room. Then, he suddenly looked at his mother, who had turned to go back to the couch, and he thought better of the situation. He ran across the living room, and down the stairs to the basement, where he jumped up on the couch and sat next to his father, who was watching the Angels - White Sox game on TV.
Mary angrily stormed down the stairs. "Didn't I send you to your room, boy?" she said.
"Well, Mom, I saw you point down the hall, but I never heard you actually *say* 'Go to your room'. So I figured it was safe for me to run down here."
"Where on earth did you get that idea from?" she said.
"We saw a guy do it in the baseball game the other day, didn't we, Dad?"
His father nodded and grinned. "We sure did. Wasn't it great?"
Mary threw her arms up in the air. "I give up. He's *your* son."
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