What Does Minnie Say?

September 10th, 2025

Our grandson, Asher, has been in kindergarten for an entire week. It seems like much, much longer. I take him to school every day, and then I usually hang around in the school’s neighborhood, because it makes little sense for me to drive all the way home and then make the arduous journey across town a second time. There is plenty for me to do while Asher is in class. He is at school from 8:00 AM until 12:30 PM. While he is busy learning, I can write letters, drink coffee, take long walks near the lake, and engage with impromptu conversations with strangers. The first conversation of the morning is often with Asher as we fight rush hour traffic. Asher doesn’t really want to know what I have to say. He wants to hear from Minnie.

Asher has a toy, one that looks like Minnie Mouse. It is a large object, and Minnie rides shotgun in the passenger seat as I drive Asher to the Waldorf School. Asher insists that Minnie wears a seatbelt. He also insists that I answer any questions that he might have for Minnie. For almost the entire trip, Asher is asking me,

“Grandpa, what does Minnie say?”

Asher is relentless in his interrogations of Minnie (me). It just goes on and on and on. He’ll ask,

“Grandpa, what does Minnie say about the weather?”

“Minnie says, ‘It’s cool, but the sun burning off the fog on the fields, and the trees are starting to turn color.’ “

Then Asher cries out, “The leaves on that tree over there are already bright red!”

Then he asks again, “What does Minnie say?”

When I needed to merge into heavy traffic, I told Asher,

“Minnie says that Grandpa needs to watch out for the other cars so that we don’t get in an accident and die.”

That comment had little or no effect. Asher continued to query Minnie and only stopped when he noticed that I was running out of breath. Then he asked me a question.

“Grandpa, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Grandpa, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Because, Grandpa, you got to be okay.”

He’s a perceptive boy.

Today Asher was okay with going to school. Yesterday he fought it tooth and nail. He screamed as we came to the school building yesterday morning, “I don’t want to go to school!” Fortunately, the early childhood coordinator, Martha, was on hand to rescue me. As I was literally dragging Asher out of his child seat, Martha came to take him out of my grasp. She smiled, sighed, and said, “The honeymoon is over.” Then she carried Asher away in her arms as he cried out to me.

Martha smiled again and told Asher, “Say bye to Grandpa. We’ll see him again after lunch.”

Her words implied that I should make myself scarce as soon as possible. I did. A few minutes later, as Asher waited outside with his classmates for school to start, I caught a glimpse of him. He was just fine, calm as could be. He quit protesting as soon as I was out of sight. I was no longer available for negotiations.

Asher went to class. I walked next door for a black Brazilian coffee and some well-deserved quiet. It seemed like a really good idea.

“What does Minnie say?”