We’ve had some friends visiting with us the past few days. Their daughter is six years old, and a very close friend of our two boys. The three of them played themselves to exhaustion each and every day, and by the end of the visit they had moved beyond silly to a surreal place that I think few people have glimpsed.

At one point, I was standing in kitchen talking to my wife and the little girl’s mom when the little girl wandered by. We continued chatting as we watched her pick her way aimlessly about the kitchen. Then my four year old walked past us and approached her.

“Mind if I smack your butt?” he asked.

“No thank you,” she said.

And they both walked away in different directions.

Talk about a conversation stopper.

My wife and I were, of course, horrified, but the whole thing happened so quickly that we didn’t respond in time. The kids were gone before we realized what had happened.