Feb 26, 2023
“OK. Once there was a dragon named Dragon who was always late. Do you know why he was always late?”
“He dilly-dallied?”
“That is right! How did you know?”
She rolled her eyes at me. She was old enough to know that Dragon was her. And while she knew that she was a dilly-dallier, she did not really see anything wrong with taking twenty-five minutes to tie her shoes. After spending thirty minutes looking for them. When they were in the shoe rack by the door all along. Where they always were.
I went on: “Dragon was the WORST dilly-dallier ever. He dillied, and he dallied. And he lolly-gagged. And on top of that, he procrastinated. And at bedtime, he was a champion staller.”
“He sounds like me,” she said flatly, like she was completely unimpressed with my story.
“Well, one day, Dragon really needed to be on time. He had a plane to catch. Now, Dragon had packed all of his suitcases the night before his trip. He had… sixteen suitcases.”
“Sixteen!” She could not help being impressed. Now I had her hooked.
“Yes, sixteen. You know, dragons are very large, so they need a lot of space in their suitcases for things like their enormous shoes and their hairbrushes.”
“Mom, dragons don’t have hair.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. I mean, they need toothbrushes. They have such large teeth, so they need really big toothbrushes.”
No reaction. So I went on. “Anyway, Dragon had sixteen suitcases. But to be honest, all of his clothes and shoes and toothbrush really did fit into just one suitcase.”
“So what were the others for?”
“For all his stuffed animals, of course!”
She smiled at this. I think she could relate.
“So, in the morning, Dragon’s mom told him to brush his teeth, but guess where his toothbrush was?”
Her eyes widened in surprise and horror. “In his suitcase!”
“That’s right. But he did not remember which suitcase, so he started unpacking them all. His mom walked in and screeched, ‘Dragon! What are you doing?! We have to GO!’ And Dragon explained about the toothbrush and his mom said he could skip brushing his teeth and Dragon said his hygienist would not approve and his mom said she did not, at this particular moment, care one bit about his hygienist and that he needed to just repack and get his shoes on, so they could go, and Dragon got a very worried look on his face at that moment. Do you know why?”
“His shoes were in his suitcase?”
“That’s right. Now Dragon really did have to empty his suitcases to look for his shoes. But that is not what took the longest time. Do you know what took the longest?”
“He had to tie his shoes.”
“Mmm-hmm. And of course, he had not untied them before he took them off, and they had really tight double knots. So Dragon sat on the floor of the living room, untying and retying his shoes while all of his suitcases were strewn about, open, with all sorts of random things falling out of them.”
“Were they late? Or did they get to the airport on time?”
I paused.
“Mom! I need to know! Did he get to the airport on time?!” she panicked.
“I think we will finish this story another time,” I said calmly with a smile.
“No! Mooo-ooom! I need to know what happened to Dragon!”
“Right now it is a certain dragon’s bedtime.”
“Mine?”
“Yes, yours. Goodnight.”
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