On the occasion of our end of summer family get together I walked into my mother’s house to see my grandchildren on the living room floor. Megan, the youngest, was playing, Travis, the oldest, a three-year old boy, was standing over the potato chip serving bowl and feasting away. He turned and looked at me, smiling, and inviting me in soft shy tones to join him. This 40 pound kid was killing that family-sized bag of chips. His sister was using toys to simulate child rearing—already trying to figure out the social mechanics of bossing babies.

Most of the adults were staring vacantly into their electronic devices or using alcohol to deaden the pain of existence. Honestly, kids, this is about all grownups do, is peep like a barrel full of monkeys at screens and poison themselves with various drugs, because the grownup world sucks so bad that it hurts the brain, so they either flush their thoughts down the toilet or let them go up in smoke.

Who, I thought, really has their act together in this crowd?

That’s right, the kids.

I grabbed a beer and sat across from Travis as he inspected chips, one by one, approved them for elderly consumption, and passed them along to me: two for me, one for Pap, three for me, one for Pap, four for me, one for Pap, and so on. Before long some busy-body adult male who was courting a female member of the family interceded on behalf of the greater busybody society, and admonished my flesh and blood to save room for more nutritional food.

My grandson looked at me questioningly, so I answered, “Sorry Buddy, I know how important nutrition is, and I should have clued you in early. You see the bottom of the bowl? That is where the vitamins and minerals collect. We need to make sure we sop that oily nutrition up before these grownups start piling their tasteless conscience on our plate!”

He smiled at me like Dennis the Menace and grabbed some crumbs, much to the horror of the busybody grownup who said, “Jimmy, how could you! No! There is too much sodium in that!”

I waved him off and looked to my grandson, “Sodium is grownup guilt-speak for salt. Salt is so important that Tibetan nomads travel great distances to barter for salt for their yaks. In the Neolithic period it was the most common form of money. Salt also makes beer taste better and is an important ingredient in chocolate milk—and we all know how important chocolate milk is!”

He smiled again, and the busybody stood up in a huff and shook his head, drawing the attention of my son. I then patted my grandson on the head and looked at his father, “Don’t worry, buddy, as long as you’re hanging with me you can break all those lame grownup rules. I outrank everyone here except my Mom and she’s busy in the kitchen. I have super seniority and the other grownups can’t make me mind.”

My son agreed in his deep fatherly tone, “That’s right, Trav, Pap can do what he wants.”

Trav then smiled at both of us, and my son continued as the busy body went for a piece of fruit in the kitchen, “So Pap, what is the best thing about being a grownup?”

I smiled at Trav and declared, “The same thing that would be the best thing about being a kid if only parents minded their own business—chocolate milk any time I want it!”