and a spring in your step

so the other day i found myself sprawled out on the sofa beside my eight- and three-year-old, the three of us kicking back to an early episode of spongebob squarepants. just then patrick, spongebob's trusty sidekick, uttered a line that gradually brought a smile to my face. now typically, i am hardly one for animated hijinks. but the more i thought about the line, the more i began to beam. fast forward fifteen seconds and i could barely contain my mirth. in fact, before long i had become so manifestly bemused by the starfish crack that eventually even eight and three had caught on to my general sense of merriment.

"what you laughing at, dad?"

"ah, nothing. it was just something that patrick said."

"patrick said something funny?"

"yeah. patrick said something funny."

"uh, ok dad."

so, too, the sight of that buxom old lady in our building who insists on squeezing my daughters' faces into her bosom every time she greets them. or the sight of my youngest selecting the same hiding spot time after time after time in her invariably futile attempts to thwart her elder sister's hide-and-seek ambitions. or the sight of middle-aged disco queens and their greying dancehall kings revelling in the music of their youth.