“Wow. That’s a lot of money, Dad.”

I looked up from the stack of checks I was counting and folded my hands. “Clara, you are supposed to be doing school work. That’s why your Mom dumped you here in my office, so you would do your worksheets like you were not doing at home.”

She waved an arm at her spelling book and made a face like I was asking her to eat a pile of smelly wilted lettuce. “Yeah, I’m working on it, but that-” she pointed. “why is there so much money there?”

I looked down at the checks. “This is the missions contribution for the church. This is the money that people gave to support missionaries this past month. We are going to stop by the bank on the way home and deposit it in the church’s bank account.”

“Well. It’s a lot of money. Like, that’s so much money that someone could buy a house or something.”

“No. No one could buy a house with this. That would have to be a very terrible house.”

She tilted her head to the side, “Well, okay. But maybe someone could buy several mattresses.”

I blinked at her.

“You know,” she clarified, “like a bed.”

“Okay, no. I know what a mattress is. Maybe this is enough to buy several mattresses. I just don’t see how that’s even relevant.”

“Or they could buy probably…” she thought for a second making silent nonsensical calculations in her head, “40 or so fish.”

“Why would someone buy 40 fish?”

She shrugged and motioned towards the stack of checks as if the money itself was all the explanation I needed. “Or,” she said, still pointing, “someone could buy-”

“Okay okay okay, I see now that you plan to just sit here for the rest of the day naming as many things as you have ever seen someone buy.”

She held up her hands in surrender and leaned back in her chair, “Alright. I’ll do my school work.” She picked up her pencil and slowly pulled her workbook so it was back in front of her. I watched as she tapped the tip of the pencil on the paper and then started writing a large capital letter C. As soon as she was done she dropped the pencil and melted into the chair. “This is SO BORING!”

I quietly placed the pencil back in her hand and continued counting checks