Can I Have an Everlasting Gobstopper, Too?

Yesterday one of the managing directors brought in her adorable five year old son to work. Let's call him Josh. A dear little ball of energy and questions and enthusiasm. And so I of course was incapable of doing any work, given that I am so incredibly engaged by children. This is in no way evidence that I am still pretending to be a child as often as humanly possible. As I was leaving for the day with said managing director to have her personal trainer help with my obnoxiously persistent back injury, she asked me to distract him for a few minutes while she finished up a call with my favorite client *cough cough*. So I happily agreed.

Josh I played in the "hall" that conveniently is open air with the entire rest of the office. Better known as everyone else who is diligently working at 430pm. He gave me his Mickey Mouse ears to wear. Which I forgot I was wearing when a senior staff member walked over to ask me a question. Excellent. Josh was particularly engaged with his little toy plane. A Continental plane in fact. Flying it around every which way, making the sounds that planes make, not particularly quietly. Because he wanted to accurately replicate the noise levels of planes, apparently. Then Josh looked at me and said, "I wish I could fit in this plane and fly in it." To which I replied, "Well Josh, you should go talk to Willy Wonka, he can make you small so you can fit in there." At which point his eyes got REAL BIG at the mere thought of this mystery man who could help him fulfill his dream of flying the toy Continental plane. Maybe all the way to Build-A-Bear. The following conversation ensued:

J: Where is Willy Wonka?
Me: In his chocolate factory.
J: Where's the chocolate factory?
Me: Well, I'm not sure, because you only know where it is if you get invited to come.
J: Why?
Me: Ummm... I don't know... but you can eat lollipops there too!
J: I need to tell mommy about Willy Wonka. (starts running to mommy's office)
Me: Wait wait wait, no we don't need to tell mommy yet. Let's tell someone else. Like Kris.
J: Ok.
Me: Josh has something to tell you, Kris.
J: Liz just told me about Willy Wonka and that he can shrink me so I can fly in the plane. Do you know Willy Wonka?
Kris: Not personally but he's a very special man, he had a chocolate factory and he wanted to give it away. They even made two movies about him.

*Kris googles Willy Wonka and pulls up the Wikipedia article about him and shows Josh the following picture*
Kris: See, there's Willy Wonka!
J: Why are all those people so small on his arms?
Me: Because he SHRUNK them like he can do for YOU!
J: MOOOMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYY!!!!

At this point mommy had finished with her call, and she and my fabulous mentor Darren emerged from her office. I informed Darren of the preceding conversation and he just laughed. And I'm not even kidding you, Josh probably asked his mom about 25 times when they could go see Willy Wonka? When? Tonight? Tomorrow? Mommy, wheeeeeen???

It was so precious.

I feared that he would not let it die, that the entire ride home we would here nothing but entreaties to visit Mr. Wonka. And that I would be fired for my cruelty and trickery. But thankfully, the crazy day of Build-A-Bear and the Disney Store and in general being a rambunctious 5-year-old boy caught up with him and he zonked out within 10 minutes of being in the car. Excellent.

Let me tell you what, someday I'm going to have a 5 year old little boy and something similar will happen, except I will BE the mom and I won't find it quite so amusing that my little son has yet ANOTHER question to ask me. Repeatedly. Thanks to some non-parent who instilled some little seed of ridiculousness. But hopefully I will chuckle and think, "Ah Liz, it could be worse. You should be thankful your child wants to befriend Willy Wonka. And not Freddy Krueger."