Many times while walking through Rocky Mountain National Park I have heard children ask “Mommy, where do elk come from?” and mommy would reply “Uhmmmm, Just a minute honey.” while she thought up a good explanation. But mommies, while good-intentioned, often have their facts mixed up. Especially city mommies. The ones that think that milk comes from the 7-11. So they reach out there and pull something out of their Mother’s Book of Tricks handbook they all carry with them everywhere.

She will often hesitate to answer for a while thinking that junior or junioress will get sidetracked or because of their short little attention spans will simply forget they asked the question and mommy is off the hook. However there is always that one little precocious child that will say “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom!” at the top of their shrill little voices until mom has to choose between infanticide and answering and will come up with a plausible, if off the wall answer.

In this case her response was “well honey, elk just don’t happen you know…” as she launched into her tale of where elk come from. She began by telling about how elk were a natural occurrence in the park but occasionally due to accidents, murder, kidnapping, being lured away for better jobs at higher pay by some of the bigger parks, yes, we’re looking at you Yellowstone, or simply falling over dead from a heart attack, they had to be replenished.

This is done by a  process called “New Elk Appearing Out of Thin Air Kind of Magically” and is a secret way the park Rangers have of ordering up new elk to replace the ones that go away. “Remember how Flatus, your goldfish went away while HelloKitty was playing with him? Well it’s kind of like that.” But the Rangers have a way cooler process they use. They have planted special trees throughout the park so that when they need new elk they water the tree with some special water, and soon big pods form on the trees and when they’re ready, the pods fall on the ground and pop open, and guess what comes out? That’s right new elk! As you can see over there by that big green tree they have just hatched six new elk.

I listened in awe as this woman, whom we shall call Mommy, completely pulled this story out of her you know what and told it to the munchkin with a completely straight face. She was incredible and I was completely smitten with her intellect. When I had the chance I told her how I admired her ingenuity she looked at me and said “What, it doesn’t happen that way?” and walked away.

Now I’m not sure if she was kidding or telling the truth so I asked the Ranger about it and he said “Oh Yeah, that’s how we do it. ” then went off to ticket someone who was trying to feed one of the elk a pop tart. I’ve thought about this quite a bit and it all seems a little glib to me so I’m asking any of you Moms out there for your thoughts on this. Was she telling the truth or was this an elaborate mommy thing done to avoid having “the Talk”. Please send any responses to The Director, at The Institute as soon as you can. Thanks