What if...

We've had two more snow days this week, so I've had some conversations with my kids that maybe I wouldn't have had. Yesterday I was asked

What if everything smelled good?

I'm not sure if he asked because I needed to take a bath, or maybe he thought I smelled good. I didn't ask as I wasn't sure I wanted to know whether I stank or not. What IF everything smelled good?

What's the use of things smelling bad? I pondered the question. Well, often times if food smells bad it means it is spoiled. Not in all cases, as there are certain kinds of cheese that smell horrible and yet (according to some people) still edible. Or Rutabegas. When my mom would cook those things when I was a kid, they stank up the whole house. And they tasted awful. As an adult, the taste isn't as bad, but the smell-not much better.

Here's another question posed to me this morning:

What if everything was red?

This was before I had had any caffiene so I didn't want to think too hard. But now, I wonder, are we talking about different shades of red or just all one shade? It would probably make deciding what to wear in the morning a little easier. Do I feel like black? Oh. I guess not since it doesn't exist.

I imagine depth perception would be an issue. Crayon boxes would be smaller. And, really, if everything were red, why bothering with crayons at all? Would everyone feel angry all the time? How would you know if you had a sunburn? And would painting the town red mean anything any more? What about traffic lights?

Gee, I think a red world wouldn't work out very well.

If you think hard enough, these questions have cosmic implications.

And yet another question,

"What if there were two planets next to each other. Would you be able to walk from one to the other?"

I looked at the blue berries he held in his fingers demonstrating what the planets would look like.

I muttered something about joined planets not being able to revolve and rotate efficiently. It hurts my brain to keep thinking on these "what if" questions.

And it hurts my heart a little bit that the what if questions don't occur to me any more. I guess I'm too busy dealing with "what is".

Still.

Some comfort is that being an author is an exercise in "what if"

What a cool book it would be that was about everything being red or a conjoined planet.

Snow days are all right!!