The things that kids say

Kids do say the darndest and even the most ponderous things.

Once in a supermarked I stood in line behind a little girl of possibly five or six years. She was about to pay for her purchase with a large handful of small change — too large for her little hands — when she accidentally dropped the entire fortune to the floor with a metallic clatter that only a large handful of small change can make. Everyone stopped what they were doing or saying and stared in the direction of that sound. She just stood there, a little surprised, looking at her spilled financial assets for a moment before saying, loud and clear in her six year old little girlie voice, the Norwegian equivalent of “Oh well. In our capitalist society it is necessary to keep the money in motion.”

Then silence, as if the Earth had stopped moving. People shook their heads as if to check that their hearing had got that right. She smiled up at everyone, and I helped her pick up the coins so she could pay. But until she had left, nobody breathed a word.

This was about sixteen years ago, and that little girl must be well grown up by now. I wonder what she's doing.