I Are An En-gun-ear

Okay, so I'm heading downstairs to leave for work the other day, and Junior says something to the effect of "Stephen is sad because you're going to work on the train today." I made some acknowledgment response, but was a little puzzled. Then I realized he must've meant Stephen was sad because I was leaving and wouldn't work on some toy train he had. (Our kids have lots of train toys.) I knew Stephen couldn't be thinking I was an engineer who worked on a train, because Junior would've corrected him and laughed at the idea...um, right?

As I walked through the family room, where Syndi was reading (as she spends hours a day doing!), I paused to ask her if Junior thought I worked on a train, which got a nice laugh out of her. I asked her to try to make sure Junior knew what kind of engineer I was sometime during the day. Then I headed off to work and forgot all about it. The next day I went to work again, but this time I remembered Junior's statement, and decided to ask Sylvia about it. I called her, and she insisted Junior didn't think that, that he knew I didn't drive a train. I asked her to ask him just to be sure.

Well, I heard back from Sylvia a little while later, and, sure enough, Junior actually thought I was an engineer that drove a train. The only thing we could figure was that he learned the term engineer from watching Thomas the Tank Engine and associated it with the knowledge that I was an engineer. The obvious conclusion - obviously - was that Daddy drove a train!

So Junior was off a little on that one, but he was way cute in his innocent misunderstanding.
So just for the record, I don't drive a train. I work in a firm that supplies material handling/warehousing storage rack. But if I did drive a train, it'd have to be one of those super-high-speed puppies, because I have a need for speed, baby!