last night carter was playing with a feather from our down comforter. after a blowing it up in the air a few times, he decided to lick it. the result was predictable--it stuck to his tongue and lips, but it was pretty funny. so he asked if i wanted to try it.

i said "no thanks, i don't really feel like licking a goose."

(this is something i tend to do when the kids put fingers that have recently been somewhere unsavory in their mouth--i say "well, you might as well be licking the sidewalk/windowsill/cat/etc")

cater looked at me for a moment, then said quietly "a goose?"

i said "yes, these feathers came from a goose."

he looked at me, very very seriously, then tearfully said "a dead goose?"

i paused, wishing for a rewind button, and finally said "yes, a dead goose."

"the POOR GOOSE!!!" carter cried.

as happy as i was that he had such a profound degree of empathy for the suffering of the goose, i did not want nightmares, so i tried to do some damage control, and talked a bit about using all of the goose, thanking the goose, hoping it had a good life, etc. that seemed to mollify him.

interesting that the feathers were the connection. he has been eating meat forever, without ever asking about the origin (though i do make a distinction between ok meat and not ok meat--ok meat comes from happy cows, not ok meat comes from sad cows--that is a tremendous oversimplification, but i figure he has a lot of time to learn about the evils of CAFOs). i suppose feathers are a lot more obviously part of an animal.