Zeeke had a very hard week. On Monday, we found out the new couch we'd ordered was coming. Steve & Karen told him that there would be no eating or jumping on the new couch. This was bad enough, but to make matters worse, he hadn't realized they would be getting rid of the old one. Just the thought of losing the faithful old couch he'd spent so much of his life on sent him into a state of deep melancholy.
On Tuesday, the delivery men brought in the new one and took the old one out to the curb. Fortunately, his friend Zoe came over for a play date which made the transition a little easier. Plus he got to show her his magic trick with the new coffee table.
But the couch wasn't out of their lives yet. The next day, the garbage collectors refused to take it, so it sat in front of the house for another week. Every time Zeeke left the house or returned home, he ran to his old couch, awkwardly exposed out on the sidewalk, and sat down in it
As the days went on, the couch collected trash, bad smells and even graffiti, but Zeeke persisted in his visits until one day he suddenly became as exasperated by its lingering presence as his parents. He was finally ready to be rid of it. (Fortunately, Karen arranged to have it picked up on the following trash day.)
Conversations with Zeeke:
"Oh, no, Daddy, there's a giant spider behind us!"
"What's his name?"
"He has no name and he kills anyone who tries to give him one."
"Harsh."
"Oh, no! Everyone in the city tried to name him and now they're all dead!"
"Whaaaaat?"
"Oh, no! Now everybody in the city and in North America is dead!"
"That's terrible!"
"Oh, no! Now everybody on the Earth is dead! I better use my double heat beam on him."
"Wait, you could have stopped him before he killed everyone on Earth? Why didn't you do that earlier?"
"It's my legendary attack. I only use it if it's a super big deal."
"A giant spider killing everyone on the Earth isn't a super big deal?"
"It is a super big deal, Daddy. That's why I'm using my legendary attack."
"Ok."
"Oh, no! Now it killed everybody in the universe!"
"Great...."
"Oh, no! Now it's killing everybody in the second universe."
"There's more than one universe?"
"There are millions of universes, Daddy."
"Is there a universe we can escape to?"
"It would be very dangerous for you to leave our universe, Daddy."