Forklift

The other day I was driving my two boys to daycare when we passed a construction site. Ian (recently turned three) exclaimed "Look Daddy! A big green crane!" (Green is his favorite color, and he never fails to mention it if something is green. We could be driving over the Golden Gate and he'd point out a green truck beside us before he mentions the awesome red bridge)

"Well, it looks like a crane, but it's actually a forklift," I said. (I hope they look back on these corrections as I intend them. Hopefully they're thinking "Thank you, Daddy, for acknowledging my childish ignorance and expanding my knowledge base" and not "Shut up you damn know-it-all. One day I'll write about this in my memoir, My Daddy The Asshole.")

After a few moments of contemplation, Ben (not quite four and a half) asked, "Why does it lift forks?"

Relating this endearing snippet to Sarah, my wife, she of course laughed, then asked "Did you tell him it's called a forklift because it has the two prongs for lifting things?"

"No, I told him some people just need a whole lot of utensils, and the spoonlift and knifelift were probably in the garage."