Little A suddenly starts chortling fiendishly, apropos of nothing, and says “Muime, I need a whole bunch of knives!”

“Er… why?”

“And also a chainsaw.”

“I see. To do what, exactly?”

“No, actually, two chainsaws.”

“You still have not told me what you want all this for. Also, you are pretty much the textbook example of why 8-year-olds are not normally given knives and chainsaws.”

Little A (once she finishes laughing at that): “…And also a tank.”

“A tank? I see. And what, exactly are you going to do with all this weaponry?”

“I’m going to make a death machine!”

“Of course you are. But for whose death, exactly? Or do I even want to know?” (I am, at this point, expecting it will probably be her school, which is the most common target of her wrath.)

“Well… First, I’m going to take out Nestlé…”

“Ah – I approve your choice of target, even though your methods are a little extreme.”

“And then…” (she pauses for dramatic effect) “…then I’m going to drive it to Jamba Juice and make them BRING BACK THAT SOY PROTEIN POWDER!”

This time, it’s me cracking up laughing…

(Background: Jamba Juice is a smoothie place near her other home, where we used to frequently get smoothies, when they had both the aforementioned soy protein powder and the whey kind. Smoothies with protein in them are a very handy way of getting nourishment into kids who are too hyper to sit down for a proper meal, and/or going through an extreme picky eater/I-hate-everything phase — and also very good for tired, overworked parents who keep missing meals. But — they recently stopped carrying the soy protein, presumably due to too many people buying into all the anti-soy scarelore, and now only have the whey protein. Which makes it much less useful to me, because while the kids can handle the whey protein, I can’t — it makes my digestive system Very Unhappy. And I guess I complained enough about it to make Little A’s priority list!)

Me: “Oh sweetie, that is SO thoughtful of you! That is about the sweetest thing you could do with a death machine made of knives and chainsaws. Although I suspect that making our own non-dairy protein powder might actually be less work than making a death machine…”

A (carrying on as if I had not said that last bit): “…And then — because it’s important to do things for yourself sometimes too — then I’m going to get rid of school!”