Encyclopaedia Mamannica

My four year old thinks I'm a genius. Truth be told, I haven't made many attempts to dissuade him, but the guilt is beginning to wear me down. I have to come clean.

I don't know anything about Beaux-Arts.

I can barely pronounce Amenherkhepeshef, or for that sake sarcophagus.

I would rather be anywhere other than the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach exhibit, but since I have no choice in the matter, "Let me tell you why they are calling hissers."

I don't know why a baboons backside is red.

I can't tell the difference between oil and acrylic paintings.

And heck, since I'm sharing my knowledge confessions...up until two years ago, I thought the Pacific Ocean was freshwater.

So yes, it's all a fraud, I'm just a fast reader with genetically blessed vision. I can read off facts from the information plaque before we've even made it to the glass separating us from the snow lion. And did you know that a snow lion can jump as far as 50 feet?

But soon enough, he'll be reading on his own and the jig will be up. And not long after that, I "just won't get it." (Presumably, this will be followed with "Leave me alone!" and probably a slammed door). So until then, I'll hold my little guy's hand and let him believe that, of course, I know all about the life cycle of a cicada.