confessions of a...

gas station attendant.

Kids are hilarious. They say funny things that make us adults laugh, not because what they say is neccessarily funny, but the manner and context in which they say it, topped with the undeniable kid-innocence that we all had back in the day of Cabbage Patch Kids (my beloved Jobina Ruth!) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wooden toys and metal playgrounds and walking to school uphill both ways barefoot in the snow...
Anyway, there are a lot of kids we know here by name...I have a silly habit of only asking the names of the awesome ones so my work life is full of awesome tiny friends.
Tonight 2 year old witty as all get out Liam came in with his dad and brother, Hayden (who is about 5), who Liam introduced to my mom and I. (My mom is the owner, for those of you who didn't know.) My mom misunderstood little Liam and thought Hayden's name was Caden (equally awesome name) and said "Hi Caden! Nice to meet you!"
Hayden replied, "Actually it's Hayden."
My mom apologized and gave a very motherly response of, "I'm sorry honey" as his dad chucked at how serious he was about correcting her. She carried on, "That's alright Hayden. Our name is the only thing that can't be taken away from us, so we have to be proud of the one we have."
Hayden proudly replied, "Yeah, except for Chad Johnson. He changed his last name to Ocho Cinco so he didn't want his old name, now his name is the same as his numbers. He's like 'hey everybody, call me Ocho Cinco it's Spanish for my number but now it's my name!' which is pretty weird."

His dad, my mom & I completely lost it! Between laughs I managed to say to Hayden, "You're completely right buddy!"

Man, I love little kids.