Jon: “Leta, it’s an orange, not a poisonous snake. Just open your mouth and taste it.”
Leta: “BUT I HATE ORANGES!”
Jon: “Have you ever tried one?”
Leta: “No, BUT I KNOW I HATE THEM.”
Jon: “It won’t hurt you to at least try a small bite.”
Leta: “UUUGGGHHHH!”
Me: “Okay, this is ridiculous. Leta, in the span of your lifetime tasting this orange is not even going to register as a blip in terms of pain. One day you’re probably going to give birth to a kid. Then you’ll know pain.”
Jon: “Why do you always go there?”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Jon: “To childbirth. You could go to ‘falling off of your bike’ or ‘an appointment with the orthodontist’ but you bypass all of that and go straight to the destruction of your vagina.”
Me: “Because it trumps everything.”
Jon: “But it doesn’t.”
Me: “Yes it does.”
Jon: “What if some dude gets eaten by a shark?”
Me: “The woman still wins because the dude who got eaten by a shark didn’t live to remember the pain.”
Jon: “What if that dude just has his leg torn off by the shark? What then?”
Me: “WOMAN STILL WINS. He won’t ever have to endure that now-gone leg growing up to be a teenager who routinely screams, ‘I HATE YOU!’ while he’s still sacrificing to save for that leg’s college fund.”
Leta: “Does this mean I can go watch TV now?”
Jon and me: “NO! Taste the damn orange!”