Sleepover

“Dude, we started from two people.”

“Dude, I know. All I'm saying is those two people could have been monkeys.”

“Dude, we're not monkeys.”

“I'm not saying we're monkeys. Millions of years ago, we were monkeys.”

“First, there were two people. I forget what their names were. Second, monkeys don't have names.”

“Dude, I know. I'm not saying the first two people were monkeys. They evolved from dinosaurs. Then there were monkeys.”

“Animals came first. Then there were dinosaurs.”

“Everything on the Earth is an animal.”

My son was having a sleepover. It was almost midnight and I decided it might be a good idea to check on them. It was just us three guys, since my wife had decided that after almost a week of camping and sleeping on a “cot” surrounded by cub scouts, I needed one more night of no sleep while she and my daughter had a relaxing sleep over at the zoo with their girl scout troop. (Amazingly, my son's friend's mom was also going on the sleep over to the zoo. As she and my wife drove away, I'm pretty sure I heard unbalanced cackling from the car...) Also, it is a great idea to take two young boys who haven't gotten a decent night's sleep for a while and put them in close quarters, after an evening of junk food and super-hero movies.

So, I quietly walked up the stairs (on the very slight chance they were both asleep) and listened to the above conversation.

I was expecting a rehash of the Avengers and a heated argument about who was the best super-hero (One thought the Hulk was the best, the other thought it was Captain America.). Instead, I walked into a debate on creationism vs evolution.

I was not prepared for this. For one, I was sober and so were both kids, so any chance of a meaningful conversation was shot.

“Listen, million and millions of years ago, there were monkeys and cavemen evolved from them.”

“There were only two people.”

“Ok, dude, millions and millions of years ago, there were like two monkeys and they kept evolving, until there were like two cavemen.”

“It wasn't millions of years ago, it was like, I don't know, six days or something.”

“But, dude, the universe is infinite. It's still growing.”

“There are multiple universes, dude.”

“No dude. There is one universe. You mean galaxies.”

“No. There are multiple universes.”

They'd gone from creationism vs evolution to wormholes. As they got into the finer details of multi-dimensional travel (The Trekkies got seriously slighted. All their designs were based on Star Wars.) I had to sit down as they designed the rocket ships. (Oh, I'd had those same conversions with my friends when I was younger. But mine were in college and fueled by caffeine, alcohol and lack of sleep. My son and his friend were only going on pizza and super hero movies. Thankfully, nothing included Jar Jar.)

Around midnight, (yes, if my son's friend's mom reads this, I am going to be in trouble. I'm pretty sure I agreed to making sure both boys were in bed at a reasonable time, which they were. There was nothing in the verbal contract about being asleep at a reasonable time.) they finally had travel to distant worlds, stars and universes figured out. There was a few minutes of quiet from their room. The world kept spinning, time continued, so I don't think they broke anything with their ideas. Just in case, I felt obliged to watch an episode of Honey Boo Boo, just to make sure the universal scales stayed balanced.