I'm a geek, so when I come across a closed system -- like, oh, say, my son Tom -- I can't help but noodle with the inputs to see what I get back, giving him sentences he's never heard before to see what he parses out. It's a very, very cute version of Hunt the Whumpus.

"Tom?"

He looks at me.

"Put the laundry basket on your head."

He waddles over to the basket, lifts it, and upends it onto his head, holding it there. He laughs. OK, he knows "laundry basket," "head," and "put." He doesn't know that his dad is screwing with him. Check.

Next, out-of-bounds conditions and timeouts.

"Now touch your bellybutton with your nose."

Please don't pass this on to the child welfare authorities.