Great Moments In Mentoring: Revisionist Compromise

I don’t often have an opportunity to help the kid I mentor with his school projects, mostly because his Mom really runs a tight ship. He’s usually long finished homework when I show up to whisk him off to go-carts and Denny’s. Recently though, she mentions something about a diorama project due in a couple of days, recreating some scene from the Second World War. She says, “he’s already made a rough draft” and she rolls her eyes as he bolts out of the room and brings back a rumpled, stained and elaborately folded sheet of paper. I tuck it in my jacket and we hop in the car, because the graphic depiction of war inside of a shoebox is a topic best discussed at a BBQ restaurant.

KID
(unfolds sketch of proposed diorama)
Basically it’s a standard battle scene and these bad guys are guarding this house right here, even though most of them are already dead in this ditch.

ME
Who are the bad guys?

KID
The Germans.

ME
You know I’m German.

KID
No you’re not, you’re from Florida.

ME
Fair enough. This looks perfect, except for one detail.

KID
What?

ME
There weren’t any dinosaurs in WWII.

KID
Prove it.

ME
You can’t put dinosaurs in this diorama, not even for laughs.
What you can put in it is Godzilla.

KID
Explain.

ME
We weren’t just fighting Germany in WWII, we were also fighting Japan. Godzilla is Japan.

KID
This is gonna be so awesome. I'm making him fight Mothra!

ME
That might be a stretch. Instead, let’s set him up against one of those wind-up nuns that shoots sparks out of the mouth. Nunzilla. She can represent Italy.

KID
I don’t get it.

ME
I know. Let’s go to the mall and get that cookie that’s as big as your head.