The African with swan flu

Our oldest daughter Briti is very bright, most of the time. She works as an office manager and wants to start school in the fall and become a nurse. She will be a great nurse, once she learns a few basic terms. This is the daughter who wanted me to kill the giant spider, as you may recall from a previous post. To continue on that theme for a moment, after reading that post the other day, Briti informed me that all she really wanted me to do (rather than simply kill the giant spider) was "walk" her down the stairs. "What would walking you down the stairs have done?" I questioned her,
"I would have felt safer." She replied,
"Because I was there to hold your hand?" I asked,
"No, I didn't need you to hold my hand." She said,
"Then exactly how did you picture we would walk down the stairs together, link arms?" said I,
"No. I thought you would go first." She muttered under her breath,
"What? Go first! So I could kill the spider with my bare feet?" I asked in surprise,
"Mothers are supposed to sacrifice their lives for their children." She tells me,
" I only lay down my life for people who don't have arms and legs." I say,
"I didn't want the spider to bite me, I'd get a disease and die."
"Spiders don't spread diseases," I tell her, "They poison you."
"Well being bitten by a poisonous spider probably feels just like the swan flu." She informs me.
"The swan flu? What's the swan flu?"
"Isn't that what everybody is dying of now? Like the bird flu?"
"You mean the Swine flu?"
"What's swine? Is that pigs or a birds?" She asks
I stare at her.
"Hi." I begin, "You don't know what a swine is?"
"I thought it was the swan flu, like the rest of those birds with the flu." she explains.
"What?" by now I'm laughing,
"Aren't swans birds?" she asks,
"Yes daughter, they are of the bird family."
"Then what's a swine? Is it swan or swine when there's more than one? Do you say 'A family of swan' ? Like Moose, do you say meese or moose or moose's? Or mice?''
I can't answer her because I am laughing so hard.
"Mom! I'm serious! You don't want me to look dumb do you? You want me to know the right way to pronounce things don't you?"
"Oh, Briti." I sigh,
" And by the way, " she begins another question, " What's an apparition?"
"An apparition?"
"Yea, you said on your blog that I stand over you like an apparition." She says,
"Oh, it's a ghost, a spirit." I explain to her.
" Oh, okay. I thought it was some type of native, like an African."