Learning not to hit

Last week I spent a day working for a friend in her in-home childcare.

The characters:
Benjamin is almost four, has a two month old brother, and test limits a lot – including hitting.
Greta is five, very meek and mild mannered, and goes to kindergarten in the morning and childcare in the afternoon.
Caleb is five, and also goes to kindergarten and then childcare.

There was lots of big, rough, outside play going on. Most of it was fine: crashing big trucks into each other and the like. Then Benjamin did some hitting.

“You have to stop hitting, Benjamin, before you go to kindergarten,” Greta says in a very knowing voice, “or you’ll have to go to the principal’s office… and you MIGHT have to stay ALL DAY. And,” she shakes her finger at him, “that’s NO FUN!”

Then Caleb looks at me and in the kind of voice one uses to say “We’ve tried everything but we just can’t seem to house train this dog,” and says, “It seems like Benjamin is going to grow up to rob banks.”

Caleb thinks for a moment, then adds, “You don’t want to rob a bank because then you have to go to Northern Kansas.”

I flip through my memory, wondering if there’s some big prison in Northern Kansas, and ask, “What’s in Northern Kansas?”

Caleb looks at me with a 'DUH!' expression, and says, “Tornados! Don’t you know that?”