another edifying conversation with Lola

Yesterday eight year-old Lola was feeling chatty as we headed to Iris's orthodontist. "Why don't cars get to go to spas, where they can be pampered?"

I said that cars do, and we call that a carwash. I was starting to explain "detailing" (a concept foreign to the children, as their parents are too cheap), but Lola cut me off. "No, I mean fancy, with special baths, elemental baths. When cars have hair, then they won't be denied!"

"What are elemental baths?" asked Iris with genuine curiosity.

"A bath where there is only one element. You know, different ones with different elements, just one element."

Iris very superiorly pointed out that water itself is composed of more than one element and went on a lengthy rant about the scientific impossibility of Lola's imagined spa, with its elemental baths, but I cut her off. "Iris, you're ignoring the most important part, that the cars have to grow hair first. Cars with hair? And does that mean that bald people can't go to the elemental baths? What does hair have to do with these elemental baths?"