The Once-ler Factory on Pleasant Street

One day as we were driving past the Once-ler Factory on Pleasant Street, The Four-Year-Old asked: “What’s a rehorsalpig?”

Mother, shamelessly buying herself time: “I don’t know. What is it?”

The Four-Year-Old, irritably: “I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

Mother: “Well, where did you hear it?”

The Four-Year-Old: “I don’t remember.”

After five minutes of further questioning, I finally realized that the term “rehorsalpig” came from an episode of Sesame Street. In the skit, the Three Little Pigs were planning to play a trick on a character my daughter calls the “Big Bat Wolf.” The original line was something like “Time for rehearsal, pig.”

Some days the real trick is just figuring out the question.