The other day, I thought my six-year-old was about to pop one of those questions every parent dreads answering. With a reverentially serious tone, she asked, “Daddy, I have a question I been thinking about a long time…”—cue a pause long enough to stop my heart—“Do snails leave their slime on rocks forever?”

Whew. So she wasn’t awake during last week’s parent-on-parent hour.