Is not a fish, a pet?

The other day, C came home all bummed out.
I asked her what was up and she showed me a drawing she had done in class. It was a 3"x3" square portrait of her pet fish.
Is that Choo-choo?

Nods.

It's a good picture of him.

Nothing.

Why did you draw a picture of Choo-choo?

Silence.

Was that for a class project?

Nods -- a tear starts to form and the bottom lip quivers in painful, 6-year old agony.
Later we got the whole story.

The class was learning to draw a bar graph. Each student drew pictures of their pets on a square and then put them bedside their names on the large bar graph running left to right on the back wall.

This being a relatively rural community, kids drew pictures of their cows, sheeps, pigs, goats, horses, chickens, snakes, assorted rodents and marsupials to go along with the typical family pets -- dogs and cats.

Some kids "pet bar graphs" were as long as the panhandle.
Some were colorful, and vibrant, and full of farm and ranch living.
Some were exotic and strange and as multi-faceted as a Petco in the city.

C had this solitary image in her pet bar graph...

Choo-choo

Dave E -- even though I LOVE my new magnetic pickup too, do not, I repeat, do NOT send an animal of any kind my way....unless it's dead, frozen, and edible.