A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot. The young family’s 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually the construction crew, all of them “gems-in-the-rough,” more or less, adopted her as a kind of project mascot.

They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars “pay” she’d received to the bank the next day to start a savings account. When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own paycheck at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, “I worked last week with a real work crew building the new house next door to us.” “Oh this is great” said the teller: “And will you be working on the house again this week, too?” The little girl replied, “I will, if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the sheetrock…” Kids say the darndest things, don’t they? Just be aware that they repeat everything they hear.