I thought I was teaching a life lesson.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I pick up my youngest granddaughter after school and we usually get into some pretty interesting conversations as we drive home. As an eample, during the early part of our dirve this afternoon she explained to me her vision of Christianity as a tree with the trunk being the basic ideas of Christianity and the branches being the Catholic and many protestant variations. I though that was some interesting thinking for a 7th grader. But later, she spotted one of her teachers riding her bike through the Target parking lot (we took a slight detour home) and urged me not to hit her with my car. Since the teacher had ridden off in another direction that wasn't a likely problem and I said so. Then my granddaughter asked what if the teacher backtracked and rode up beside me. I replyed flippantly that she had better not run into me because in a car bike collision the car always wins. This is, I think, simply a truism but my granddaughter was astonished that I would say such a thing and thought I sounded really mean. I didn't mean to sound mean but maybe she'll think carefully before she rides her bike in traffic.