Jeez, where do I begin?

“You know what I wish I had?” Sassy asked while we were laying in bed snuggling for a few minutes tonight.

“No, what?” I asked. This could be anything. A musk ox? Pink seashells? Hepatitis? She’s eight. She has lots of fanciful ideas.

“A water-bed.”

“You don’t want one of those,” I told her. “They’re a pain.”

“How do you know?” she asked, her tone accusatory and speculative at the same time. Like she didn’t believe that I’d know and would now make up some wild, bullshit answer.

“I’ve had water-beds.” I lived through the seventies and eighties. There were beds with water.

“Why haven’t you told me this?” Now she’s really accusatory. “You didn’t think I needed to know?”

Jesus, like I told her she was adopted or her father and I are Russian spies or  that she isn’t a real girl, just a wooden puppet.

“I am certain there are lots of things I haven’t told you about the first thirty-three years of my life on this Earth prior to your birth that you’ll find fascinating at some point in your life.”

She sat up in her bed and glared at me in the darkness. “Like what, exactly?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” I wrinkled my brow and might have even flinched a little. She was giving me stage fright.

“Well, you think about it.” She settled back on her mattress and crossed her arms. “I’ll expect a list tomorrow.”