The other Spock

Okay, so this is a Star Trek adjacent story. Then it takes a left turn.

My niece and I saw Star Trek separately. Obviously from 2 different perspectives. Me – grounded in the Canon, as a second generation fan. Her – well, I’ve done my best to give her a good grounding, but she thinks Twilight is good scifi. What can you do? (Well, actually, Lilith Saintcrow has a new YA book called Strange Angels coming out, and I’m hoping it will put a stake in Edward Cullen’s sniveling little heart.)

So, I was curious on her take on the whole Trek thing. If Star Trek is going to survive, it’s going to have to grab kids her age. She was pretty into it. Liked the characters, especially Scotty (I knew making her watch Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz would pay off! I’m not a complete failure as a role model.), dug the whole Enterprise thing, thought the fx were good, wants to see the sequel. All good news.

Then she says, “What kind of name is Spock?”

“Um, Vulcan.”

She looks very doubtful.

“And well, there’s the child psychologist from the 60s. Dr. Spock.”

“There was somebody who really had that name.”

“Yeah. He was famous.”

And here’s where I broke bad.

“Everybody read his books. He had all these theories about raising kids. Like that you should spank a kid 3 times a week.”

“What?! What if they hadn’t done anything wrong?”

“At least 3 times. It’s good for them. Until they’re 19.”

“WHAT!? That’s just not fair. You can’t just spank somebody for just no reason. That’s just mean. What if you hadn’t done . . . anything. . . wait. Are you joking?”

Ah. Goofing on a kid. Priceless.