Well, maybe they did talk

I've been meaning to post this little anecdote because it cracked me and David up so much.

So William and I had a rather vehement disagreement in the car on the way home from church the other day. He insisted that dinosaurs could talk. He knows that there are no dinosaurs living today, but he kept insisting that when they did live, they could talk.

I said, "No, I'm pretty sure that only humans can talk." (Too early to get into philosophical arguments about what makes us human, what separates us from the animals, etc.)

William loudly objected. He said, "No! I saw talking dinosaurs on TV. They talked! They talked!"

I said, "Well, they were just pretend dinosaurs. You know they're not real because the dinosaurs are extinct. Those were just made-up dinosaurs you saw on TV."

(I know. I'm a real buzz kill. The next thing you know, I'm going to be telling him the truth about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.)

But William stubbornly insisted, "They did too talk! The paweontowogist [that's William for 'paleontologist'] on TV said they did!"

You think he watches too much TV?

Also, how do I argue with a paleontologist? When I was a kid and learning about dinosaurs, we didn't even know that they were related to birds. People practically thought the earth was still flat.