As I was out weeding the garden path this morning, I found myself casually listening to the gels playing with their rope swing.  (We put this up a few weeks ago and it has been a huge hit.  Forget your fancy mega-bucks playsets.  Forty feet of rope and a board with a hole drilled through the middle: priceless.)

As you can imagine, three pig-headed strong-minded gels and one swing can lead to some problematical math.  They had some kind of turn-taking arrangement coupled with pushing duty, but it seemed subject to endless acrimony and continual arbitration, culminating every now and again to a tearful appeal to Daddy.

After several times having overheard what really happened and then comparing it to the version of events presented to me by the appellant,  it suddenly entered into my mind to wonder whether Margaret Mead ever had any children.  A quick peak at her bio confirms that she did, in fact, have one daughter.  My guess, though is that she could not have been paying very close attention to the child.  Had she done so, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been as thoroughly suckered by the Samoans as she was.