Five-Year-Old

Five-year-old

Grampa stood up saying, “I’ll be right back.”

“How long is right?” Jeff asked.

“Huh?” Gramps asked.

“How long is right? Is that minutes or hours?”

“No! I’m just going to get something from my car.”

“So ‘right’ means the amount of time it takes to walk to a car.”

“I guess...” Gramps turned to go.

“But people park their cars in lots of different places... If your car was out front that would be minutes, if it was at your house it would take hours... if it was uptown...”

“Hold your horses mister!!”

“I don’t have any horses. Do you have horses?” he suddenly got excited, “How come you never showed me your horses!”

“I do not have horses. And ‘right back’ doesn’t mean a specific amount of time. I’ll be right back means I will be back quickly.”

“Oh... no horses huh. I don’t have any horses either. I sure would like to try riding a horse someday though. Did you know there’s a place in town where you can ride horses?”

“I do. Why don’t you ask your parents to take you there?”

“I did, a million times. They keep saying someday. But someday never seems to come.”

“You know what? I was going to my car to get my glasses, I need them to read you know. But since we are stuck together until your parents come home, how about we go over and see that place that lets you ride horses?”

“Really? Yes! Now? I’ll get my jacket!” off he ran.

Grampa spent many long hours trying to figure out how that all happened. Especially since when Jeff’s parent got home they thought it was funny that Jeff actually told them he was going to try to get Grampa to take him horse back riding...