"Rick, I want Debbie. You dump her and I'll give you cash, ten thousand dollars, plus a GE toaster oven." - Cole, Bachelor Party

The Boy plots his capitalist rise to power, by first bulldozing a church and then putting in his personal brand of pizza restaurants. Picture Credit - The Boy.

The Boy and I were stuck inside working the other day. It was rainy outside, so I decided it was time to replace all the caulk in the house. Thus ends the Alaska content of this post – it was raining up here the other day.

Not really. I just picked the Master Bathroom (if you don’t know if you have a Master Bathroom, see if any of your bathrooms wants to invade Poland, then that's the Master Bathroom) tub. I didn’t do this at random, though heaven knows The Mrs. has come home a time or two and found me elbow deep in drywall that had once been a solid wall, just because I didn’t like the way it looked. In this case, I didn’t like the way the caulk looked. Some moron (name of John) put the stuff in, and it looks like an army of fifth graders mashed the stuff in with Popsicle® sticks.

Caulk is sticky stuff, and I’m guessing that they made it that way so that it would stick to things, like bathtubs. The Boy and I jumped in the tub and started ripping it out. The Boy was surprisingly helpful – I’m guessing the inherently destructive nature of the task is well-suited to the way a five-year-old brain works. He did a good job.

I used the knife. I cut, pulled, and cajoled the clingy stuff away from the tub’s glistening ceramic surface. I had used a silicon caulk, so that made the job that much harder. I had a new tube of GE silicon caulk ready to replace the crappy install job I’d done last year.

What I didn’t expect was the conversation that followed.

The Boy, excitement in his voice: “Hey, this silicon caulk is made by GE. They made our TV!”

John Wilder, attempting not to cut his fingers off: “Yup.”

The Boy: “They made our phone, too!”

John Wilder: “Yup.”

The Boy: “They make light bulbs.”

John Wilder: “Yup.”

The Boy: “Do they make . . . pizzas? (no) radios? (yes) stoves? (yes) electric ones? (yes) carpet (I don’t think so) caulk? (yes) microwaves? (maybe, but I don’t remember one) refrigerators? (yes) pizzas? (you already asked that) laptops? (no) paint? (I don’t think so) shoes? (no)” and on, and on, and on. We talked about the things GE makes for about an hour. This was not as annoying as it might sound, but it was nerdy as all hell.

The Boy finally figured out that GE made a lot of things that we own. He demanded to go to their website and see the things they make (this was – I swear – his idea). He and I were both impressed, and to his delight and surprise he found that GE owned NBC. NBC owns the SciFi Channel. The SciFi Channel puts out his favorite show, Ghosthunters. The Boy loves GE. GE, however, is in a dead heat with Sony. He won’t pick a favorite company between the two, but I think he was going to analyze their various business plans, and invest his Superman™ piggy-bank savings in one of them.

As he walked down the hall, I could hear him muttering, “What would legendary GE CEO Jack Welch do? I think he would get rid of the lowest 10% of performers in the house. Is that The New Boy, or is it Dad?”