[Quick background note: One of the boys’ favorite aunts likes to be “bad.” She burps, tells them mildly inappropriate jokes and encourages them to misbehave. It’s a small wonder she’s their favorite. For the purposes of this tale, I’ll call her Aunt H.]

This morning I came down from my office to discover the boys and some friends eating pancakes outside in a giant blanket fort. I poked my head in to say hi. Of the four kids, only the youngest was eating with a fork.

“Wow,” I said smiling at her. “Look at you, all grown up and eating with a fork.”

She beamed back at me.

“Yeah,” my second-grader said, “but all the boys are eating with their fingers!”

“‘Cause she’s a lady and you’re all barbarians,” I said.

He nodded, then turned to his friends. “You know what a barbarian is? It’s someone who doesn’t care about the law. It’s a bad guy.”

I shook my head. “Not always. It could just be someone who doesn’t care about manners.”

“Oh,” he said. “Like Aunt H!”

“Yeah!” his younger brother said, waving a pancake in the air. “We’re barbarians!”

“Sometimes,” my oldest said to his friends. “My daddy is a barbarian, too. In fact, he used to be a barbarian all the time!”

Happy Memorial Day, Aunt H.

It’s good to be a barbarian.