The Animal Man!!

We were about 10 feet apart when first our eyes met.

She looked at me intently, studying my face, and I smiled--held captive in her gaze.

She pointed at me and started yelling, "Animal Man! Animal Man!" while looking at her mom.

The mom bent down a little, looking at her three year old daughter, "What do you mean sweety?"

"Animal Man! It's Animal Man!"

"Have you seen him before?" she asked, stealing a quick glance in my direction and displaying a smile that didn't do much to mask her embarrassment.

"It's Animal Man!"

"Do you see any animals on him?"

In a hushed voice the girl replied, "No, but it's Animal Man," her insistence and impatience with her mom's lack of understanding obvious.

"Sweety, I don't know what you're talking about, but you're starting to be rude."

I lost track of what the mother was saying to her daughter as I continued to scan the groceries.

The mom came up to the register and slid her credit card in the keypad.  "I'm sorry.  I don't know who she thinks you are.  The only thing that I can think of is that little dark hair kid in the movie where he's living alone in the jungle with the animals... oh, what's that movie called?"

"The Jungle Book?" I asked.

"Yeah!  That's the one.  I can't figure out what else she could be thinking of..."

I had just trimmed my beard before coming to work, and being fairly familiar with how I was looking at the moment, I just couldn't make the connection of a bearded 6'3" guy in a TJ's crew member t-shirt, cargo pants, and hiking boots with Mowgli, the Jungle Boy.  I thought of suggesting "Grizzly Adams," but didn't.

I looked back to the girl, smiled to myself and wondered just who she thought I was.

---

A few days prior, a little boy was sitting in a shopping cart and kept insisting that there was a cow somewhere in the store, though his mom couldn't see it.  Finally, the mother realized he was referring to a chalk drawing of a cow above the dairy case, on the other side of the store. She was quick to correct herself and apologized, "Oh, now I see it sweety."

These two events, coupled, made me realize two things:

• Children are incredibly and accurately perceptive
• Maybe, we too quickly dismiss a child's perspective as being immature or fanciful