One day, my neighbor and I decided to dig for dinosaurs. That is, we looked around, found a suitable bare patch of ground between a big cedar tree and the huge bush in the backyard, and began to dig. The effort was serious; we even wore hard hats. Well, at least my neighbor did. He borrowed one from his dad, who worked at the local aluminum manufacturing plant. I wore my red plastic fire hat.

Anyway, we exerted our communal property rights (“finders’ keepers”) on the neighborhood garden tools and started digging. After reaching an acceptable depth — so we could hide in it without being seen by adults — we struck gold! No, not really, but we did find bones. Lots of them, and they were big. Without a doubt, this was a significant find. Anyway, I triumphantly announced the discovery to my parents, who looked at each other with the expression, “Had the little nut-job found something?” I went back to my dig and finished the excavation. We collected all our evidence and presented it to my parents.

Clearly, we proved that not only were there dinosaurs in our backyard, but they were also domesticated, as evidenced by the leather collar found around the skeleton’s neck. And like good paleontologists, we then filled the hole with water and spent the rest of the day jumping in it.