On Mortality

Daniel seems pretty confused about what makes people die and what doesn't. I have mentioned before that he believes that vegetables and fish will make him die. Yet he continues to subsist on a steady diet of hot dogs and Wolf Brand Chili without qualm or worry. Once, I took Daniel to a Shoney's Breakfast Buffet. I suppose I was too wrapped up in the existential/erectile woes of a teenage boy to notice that he had bacon for his main course, with a side of bacon, and, for dessert, more bacon. When we got home, Mom asked him what he had eaten for breakfast.
"Bacon," he said.
"And...?"
"Just bacon."
"Did he just bacon, John-Ross?"
"I dunno, Ma, I'm busy."
"Daniel, how many pieces of bacon did you have?"
"About a million."
In addition to being fearless against the clogged arteries, constipation, or greasy skin that an all-pork diet portends, Daniel also does not have a full grasp of physics. He has stepped in front of a moving school bus before. As a toddler, while preparing for a CAT scan, he made a power play over my parents and the doctor by grabbing a security guard's firearm, proclaiming, "Gimme that my gun!" Conversely, Daniel believes that our dog, a ten-year old Scottish Terrier over whom he towers like Godzilla, is constantly concocting elaborate plans to bite him.
Daniel still only understands electrocution in terms of "making the bones show". One time, he flipped a switch while my father was on a ladder messing around with some of the wiring in overhead light.
"Daniel, don't do that! You electrocuted me!"
My brother met these admonitions with a blank stare. Dad amended his earlier statement.
"...You made my bones show."
Which sent Daniel into a giggling fit.
Although Daniel has historically proven to not be so keen vis-a-vis the things that make a person die, he does seem to understand the permanency of death, as illustrated by a recent comment about Seventies pop duo and variety show co-hosts, Sonny and Cher.
"A lot of people want Sonny and Cher to shut up. Sonny's shut up. But not Cher."
It's a start.