Armadillo memories

My Charlotte has always wanted to be a veterinarian. I'm just glad she wants to be something that's a real job. Too many young girls aspire to be cheerleaders or princesses or mermaids or some schlocky animated movie fantasy, rather than an actual, achievable career. Her younger sister Angela had previously wanted to be a nurse (again, a real job), but recently she announced that she wants to be an electrical engineer. Score! I was happy with nurse, so I'm overjoyed at electrical engineer. One unresolved question is how a seven year-old girl learned what an electrical engineer is in the first place. I think I was thirty before I understood what an electrical engineer does. It must be all those science camps we send her to in the summer.

Today I find my future veterinarian Charlotte studying armadillos. That brought forth a number of armadillo-themed jokes and stories from me. While stationed at Ft Sill, OK, for artillery school, a few of us took a long weekend to visit Dallas. I found it odd that as soon as we crossed the Texas border, we started finding dead armadillos by the side of the road. How do they know to die on the Texas side of the border? The armadillo's defense against danger is to roll into a ball, which makes sense when confronted by a small predator. It doesn't work as well against a Ford F-150 traveling at 75 mph.

This is the Texas version of the famous "why did the chicken cross the road joke" (the original version of which Aaron told Moses to cheer him up during a battle with the Amalekites).

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To show the armadillo it could be done.