At dinner the other night, he turned to me and said, "Did you know friends are more valuable than gold?" If I said something like that I'd sound like a doof, but coming from a measly 1st grader? Pretty darn profound.
But then, we were watching TV one night and a Halloween commercial came on with Michael Jackson's Thriller playing in the background, and Homer looked at me and said, "Did you know Michael Jackson died from singing that song?" I said, "You can't die from singing a song, Homer." And he said, "You can't die from singing a song?" in this super incredulous tone of voice. I answered with an emphatic, "No," and then added, "Duh," for good measure.
But then I watched the X-Factor and there were some terrible singers on that stage and I wondered... what if you could die from singing a song? Surely, all those singers would be dead. Their audience, too. And maybe, just maybe, this a good idea for a Young Adult dystopian novel. Entitled Swan Song. It sort of sounds familiar so maybe it's already been done.
Speaking of, what do you think of the X-Factor? Is it not exactly like American Idol, but for a few rule changes? The judges are the same, the editing is the same, the theme music is similar. So far, the most significant change is that the judges are now drinking Pepsi instead of Coke. How weird is that?! Who does that? To switch soda preference at their advanced ages... I'm telling you, that is unheard of!