Next Time, the Kid Stays Home in the Mazda

Brock, I just gotta say sorry, man. You were an excellent guide to the Capitol this past Saturday, and your knowledge of the artwork inside the rotunda verges on ridiculous. And even your Jesuit priest-style habit of ending a fact with a question—e.g., “The statue of General Jackson was a gift of…what state?”—grew on me after a while.

So it only seemed fair of you to ask whether any of us had questions of our own. And when my toddler son said yes, and you asked him what it was, and I was waving my hands as if to say, No, no, don’t call on him—well, it’s understandable that you didn’t see that.

What I can’t figure out is why he then told you and the tour group, “I live in a car.”

And why I felt compelled to tell them we don’t.

John Trumbull, Surrender of Cornwallis, 1817-1820 (from the Capitol Rotunda collection)