When I was young — perhaps in my fifth or sixth year — my little sister and I met an older brother-and-sister pair, who turned out to live not far from us. From their very first moments they seemed dangerous. Their seemed to wish to corrupt us. And I really do mean that quite literally. Their most extravagant gambit was to extol the eating of “poo.”

It tastes like marshmallows, they said.

I looked upon them as demented perverts, and was thus inoculated, at a young age, from some types of manipulation.

Kids could not be trusted, I came to learn. Some kids were nuts. Or just evil.

“It is just hi jinks,” you might say.

The “just,” there, is misplaced. Sure, “hi jinks” might explain it. But I did not see their gambit then as mere sportive antics, horseplay.

Some people live to get others to engage in autocoprophagy.

twv