Fun concepts to explain.

[rivka]

Alex: peeling a stamp off my stamp book, which I carelessly left on my desk. I need an envelope.

Me: Hey! Stamps cost money, so you can't use them without permission. takes it back.

Alex: But I need a stamp. I need an envelope that we're not using, and some stamps.

Me: Why do you need them?

Alex: Because I need to send a letter to my great-grandmother.

Me: Who is your great-grandmother?

Alex: She died.

Me: Honey, you can't send a letter to someone who died.

Alex: Why not?

Me: Because when someone dies, we don't know where they are and no one can see them or be with them anymore. That's why it's so sad when someone dies.

Alex: Oh.

I feel like I bungled that one, inadvertently giving the impression that death is like being swept away to one of the CIA's secret prisons. It would help if she gave me advance warning that I was going to need to come up with a sensitive explanation of life's great mysteries.

Comments

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I think you probably handled it just fine. I can quite easily imagine her having been focused only on posting the letter, and once she realized she couldn't, she probably moved on to something else.

But if you prefer, we can imagine how she'll be on the lookout for black helicopters if/when she needs to attend a funeral. (If so, I could dispatch Billina to guard against the helicopters. Monty Python had it right...nobody expects a special-ops trained chicken.