Daisy gets to watch a little TV most days. I realize that better parents would have their kids composing symphonies, or feeding the poor, or composing symphonies for the poor, but that's just now how things worked out in our house. I may be a liberal, but I firmly believe that the poor should compose their own symphonies. Bootstraps, baby.

Anyway, the other day Daisy was perusing the Tivo "Now Playing" list, picking a show to watch. She clicked over to the group of "Magic School Bus" episodes that were available. It's her favorite show, but she's seen every episode multiple times. Hank watched her scroll through the episode descriptions from the kitchen.

"Oh, not that one," Hank muttered quietly to herself, "she's seen that a million times. Good god, not that one either. Ugh, she's seen these all so many times. What a terrible choice." Hank sighed.

Meanwhile, from the living room, Daisy sighed.

"They're all so good," Daisy muttered to herself. "How can I pick?"

Thankfully Daisy made the tough decision and picked an episode, but, still, it makes me shake my head. Daisy will HAPPILY watch the same TV or movie over and over again. She has, more often than not, finished watching a movie and then immediately asked to watch it all over again. When picking a book to read, she's more likely to choose a favorite off the shelf than dig into a new one.

What the hell?!?

I will grant you that during my youth, I saw every episode of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's island more times than I care to admit, but in my day we had about 4 channels. So, there just weren't very many options. If there had been another show aimed at the mental level of an 8 year-old, I would have watched that instead of subjecting myself to the queasy feeling I'd get every time the Brady's picked up that damn tiki idol.

Not Daisy though. When I saw her reading a book for the third or fourth time the other day, I interrogated her about why she was doing that instead of reaching for one of the interesting new books she had received for her birthday.

Me: You JUST finished that book. Why are you reading it again?
Daisy: I like it!
Me: I know. It's a good book. But you have some new books to read that look pretty good too.
Daisy: I know.
Me: Wouldn't you rather read a book where you don't know what's going to happen?
Daisy: Then I wouldn't know what was going to happen.

Man, that is just weird. I think this comes from the same part of her personality that only likes stories where good things happen instead of conflict and resolution. It's some crazy fear of the unknown. The classic Daisy story probably goes like this:

Chapter 1: Baby kitten becomes best friends with baby bunny.
Chapter 2: Baby kitten and baby bunny open a rainbow and candy store together.
Chapter 3: Big musical number about togetherness

She'd watch that endlessly. Here in our corner of the world, there is no Joseph Campbell classic myth. There are only rainbows and candy.

There are bigger problems to solve, but this one is perplexing.