Superman bites the dust

When my granddaughter Kim was about three, I often took her to play in a nearby park.

- K.C.VERMA

Each time that we left home, her mother would ask, “Kim, are you wearing diapers?” And she, in turn, would ask in her cute lisp, “Nana, are you wearing di-apples?”

“I don’t need to wear any,” I would say each time. Possibly for this reason, Kim thought I had superpowers and regarded me as a lovable combination of Superman and SpongeBob SquarePants. Since I had no inkling who SpongeBob SquarePants was, I did not know whether to be flattered or ashamed. But my granddaughter reassured me that SpongeBob was a friend, so I assumed that, overall, to be a combination Superman-SpongeBob was not a bad thing.

Besides the mysterious independence from diapers that I enjoyed, there were other things too that Kim was in awe about. She was impressed that nana was allowed to put ice in the bitter medicine that he had every evening and that he could drive a car. She was puzzled by the long hours that nana spent playing cards on the computer. She also wondered why nana and nani went for parties so frequently, even when it was no one’s birthday. Quite naturally, she regarded me as weird; but in a good way.