'if there be any truer measure of a man...'

The assignment - Measure, in centimeters, something you love and draw a picture of it.

"Oh! I know what I'll measure!" cheers the 7 year old boy, ripping the red plastic ruler from the junk drawer and running upstairs.

"Take your time and measure very carefully!" reminds the always helpful Mom, imagining her son taking precise calculations for a scale model drawing of a Star Wars action figure or Lego car.

"I've got it!" cheers the 7 year old boy once again, bounding down the stairs, prepared to draw.

"OK, I'm done!" cheers (again)(for he is always cheery) the 7 year old boy. "Mom! Look what I measured! Can you guess what it is?"

The Mom, turning from her pot of perfect spaghetti sauce, takes one glance at her son's worksheet and thinks, "Yeah! Blog fodder!! Oh, thank you, thank you, sweet Gods of Homework!" She then smiles at her son and says, "Hey there, love! Looks like you found something pretty interesting to draw! I think we should call Dad in here and see if he can guess what it is, too!"

"Wait!" cries the 7 year old boy. "Before we do, I need to fix it. It's too small! I need to make it bigger!"

"That's what they all say," says the Mom as she watches the boy slash through the orb that had once been a zero and editing his work to insert a 2 in its place.

"Hey there, boy!" greets the Dad. "What did you measu....Oh, hahahaha. Um, HEY! WHAT IS THAT!?"

"I will give you clues!" says the helpful 7 year old boy. "See if you can guess what it is as I write down the letters!"

The 7 year old boy writes. P...E...

"Oh! Hmmm...." ponders the Dad. "Hey, son? Is this homework you'll actually be turning into your teacher?"

"HAHAHA!!" laughs the Mom, pausing briefly from her fit of laughter to remind the Dad that the 7 year old boy's teacher is named Mrs. Wood.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" laugh the Mom and the Dad.

The 7 year old boy writes some more. "Have you guessed yet?" he asks while putting the finishing touches on a softly sloping lowercase N...

"Well, I have some ideas," say the Mom and the Dad in unison, pausing briefly to marvel at how in sync they are that they said the same thing at the same time, thus causing them to ignore the 7 year old boy for a few seconds and commence in some fist bumping and the Mom saying, "Now you have to buy me a Coke!" and the Dad saying, "What?" and the Mom saying, "Are you kidding me?" and the Dad saying, "I don't know what you're talking about!" and the Mom asking, "You seriously don't know the rules of jinx? Next you're probably going to tell me the words 'slug bug' mean nothing to you, either" and the 7 year old boy to finally interrupt by crying out, "Hey! I'm talkin' here!"

Anyway...

The Mom and the Dad turned back to the 7 year old, prepared to tell the child how clever they thought he was, but that it might not be a good idea to combine his math homework with what was looking hauntingly like a biology lesson when they noticed he'd stopped writing.

"Can you guess what it is?" quizzes the 7 year old boy.

"Yeah! It's a pen!" cry the Mom and the Dad, relief and glee washing over their faces.

Homework complete, the 7 year old boy jumps down from his bar stool and puts his ruler AND his pen away without the Mom needing to remind him. Such a good boy, that 7 year old boy!

Left alone to marvel at how smart their son is, the Mom and the Dad marvel at how smart their son is. Then the Mom turns to the Dad, smiles, and suggests he brace himself for the remarks that are to follow.

"Are you ready?" the Mom asks the Dad, who shrugs, knowing that no matter what he says, the Mom NEEDS to get what follows out of her system.

"I guess what they say is true. The pen IS mightier than the sword!" she cheers. "Get it? Get it? The pen IS? The PEN IS? The PENIS?!"

Realizing she may be pushing her luck for she already presented a classic, the Mom went for another. "I guess that other thing they say is also true. It's not the size of your pen that matters, it's what you write with it that really counts!"

"Are you done now?" inquires the Dad.

"Close," responds the Mom. "But first, maybe you should give me your autograph. You'll need a pen for that. Wink, wink."

"Be sure to call me back here when dinner's ready," sighs the Dad.

"I'll make a note of it!" says the Mom. "I'll need something to write that down with. Hey! Is that a pen in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

The Mom then went on and on with the veiled penis jokes ("I could go on all night! I haven't even touched on the ink portion of the comedy!") because that's just the kind of person she is. The Boy went on to get smiley face sticker on his homework courtesy of Mrs. Wood. And the Dad? The Dad still owes the Mom a Coke, though he may have written her an I.O.U. Heh...