School for Cavemen

“Dad says we would have made a really good caveman family,” First Born Prince tells me.

“Because of how big and strong we all are, we would never worry about anything.  We’d have plenty of food from hunting and we’d be able to defend our cave.”

I know this caveman fantasy.  He was dreaming about how simple life would be if all he had to do was bring home meat and hit me over the head with a club once in a while. 

Except, wherever you go, even in time travel, there you are.

The Professor would constantly be in discussion with tribe elders, trying to figure out how to build better weapons and make fire.  Word would get out about this large man in a well-heated cave and he would be asked to travel to other cave tribes and teach them what he’s learned.

I could see myself in a fashionable animal hide explaining to the other cavewomen how I enjoyed having a warm cave and lots of meat but that I was exhausted from how the Professor was constantly analyzing the way we did things.  I’d confide that although the basket he gave me was helpful, I liked to gather berries my own damn way.

He’d be gone for weeks at a time, taking his sack of new tools with him.  The other cave people would ask me if I missed him and I would say yes but really I would be happy for the break to live on ill-gathered berries and soak in the hot springs with the other cave women who had successful hunters who were gone a lot.

When he’d return, he’d be full of tales of other tribes who inspired him, young cavemen with good ideas of their own and I would show him the new boulders I found for us to sit on while we ate our meat.

At the end of the day, when we were all tucked safely into our warm cave corners, bellies full, I’d look over at my big, exhausted caveman and be very proud.