branch-on-ground
Acacia tree at sunset, Laikipia Plateau, Kenya
DELANEY (6, after ten silent seconds staring at our bathroom scale): I wonder how people in places like Africa and India weigh themselves if they don’t have scales.
DAD: Hm. I never even thought about that. Any ideas?
(Five seconds pass.)
DELANEY: I know! They could sit on a long tree branch and see how far down it bends.
DAD (recombing his hair): Holy cow, Lane. That would totally work.
ERIN (9): And they could say, “‘I weigh branch-halfway-down. How about you?’ And the other guy says, ‘I ate too much. I weigh branch-on-ground.'”
(Laughter.)
DELANEY: Or they could put carvings on the tree trunk to see how far down it goes.
This kid slays me on a daily basis. She recognized a problem, proposed a workable solution, and refined it, all within sixty seconds. I’m pretty sure that my own scientific investigations at the age of six were limited to which nostril produced the best-tasting boogers.1
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1Left side, by a mile — though further research is necessary.
