This guy walks into a bar, see...

Well, the cold is better.

Little Peeper is having some...issues...with daycare, tho, as Mojo tries to deal with having to get up early enough for her new job over at BigLittleLawFirm, LLC. Last night he ran wild as she was trying to get him into bed, and then he peed on her.

Oooooh, was she a mad Mommy!

There was a Daddy intervention, lots of tears and finally a big Mommy-Peeper hug, but we'll see. I think the Peep is just realizing that this daycare thing (which we call "school", BTW, to make a little boy feel more like a big boy) isn't just a temporary Mommy break but is shaping up to be a full time deal. Oh, the humanity! Methinks there's more rough water ahead for our Lad.

I wanted to post up my thoughts about what Tuesday's election victory and the subsequent defenestration of The Rumminator means for Iraq, but first I was reminded of this story during a conversation with the breakfast bunch down at Beaterville.

Back in the late 80's my ex and I lived in the bottom half of a lovely older house in Wilmington, Delaware. It was a lean time. I was working as a mechanic's assistant at a Ford Tractor dealership up on Concord Pike while the then-Mrs. Chief - let's call her EMC - went though nuclear med tech school. But we had fun, and, among other things, got to see Greg LeMond climb Monkey Hill during the time trial stage of the Tour de Trump. That was cool. (And, no, that's NOT Greg. But the cobbles of Monkey Hill caused some truly spectacular crashes, so I wanted to give you a feel for them. All in all, it WAS a cool place to live)

Anyway, one Halloween we lived there, EMC was out late in the evening and I was manning the door. I heard the bell, opened the door to find two African-American boys standing there. Both in their street clothes. The old boy, probably seven, was wearing one of those black oval party masks, but the little boy, four or five, was dressed no differently than he would have been for school.

"Trick or treat" they chorused. Into their bags went the Oh Henry bars.

"So what are you dressed up as?" I ask the older kid.

"I'm Batman" he replies. I look at the littler guy. "Who are you?" I ask, and get that googly eyed stare you get from toddlers and post-toddlers trying to process uncomputable requests.

"He's The Joker" says older brother.

I look hard at him. "Hold on. I'll give you Batman - black mask, okay. But I've seen the movie. He looks nothing like the Joker, no purple suit, no clown makeup, nu-uh, nope. Your little brother doesn't look anything like the Joker!"

Older brother looks at him, looks back to me, says:

"That's the joke."

Sweet. Kid got another Oh Henry for that.

Coming up: Iraq: WTF?