Maybe all President Skroob needed was a four-year-old by his side at all times to tell it to him straight.
In the Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs, the unscrupulous president of Planet Spaceball gets talked into letting Snotty beam him down from his office to the control room.
"What the hell, it worked on Star Trek," Skroob says. But it doesn't go so well on Planet Spaceball - due to a "microconverter malfunction," Skroob is reassembled with his head on backwards. Stunned to be looking at the world from a whole new perspective, Skroob has one important question: "Why didn't somebody tell me my ass was so big?!" Skroob, no doubt, was surrounded by yes men his whole life who would never dream of telling their boss that he could stand to lose a few boards off the back porch, maybe focus a little more on the free weight squats and a little less on the free range chicken wings. I've discovered, however, that there is one form of personal adviser who will give you their honest assessment regardless of whether you're a Druish Princess or a lowly Mog: the four-yearold human.
This all started a couple of months ago when I was idly scratching my nose and realized I'd been going at it for a good while but still had a lot of unscratched surface area to cover. The thought that I might have a big nose never really occurred to me until that exact moment. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that all the telltale signs were there - Halloween masks not fitting quite right, small woodland creatures sheltering beneath my face during rainstorms, rhinoceroses banging at my door all hours of the night during mating season. Plus a look at my family tree reveals one particular line blessed with athletic prowess, kind hearts and massive schnozzers. Was I included in that picture? I'd never thought about it before.
I took a good hard look in the mirror. From the front I didn't see too much out of the ordinary. From the side, though, there were troubling indications of honker gigantus. Up top things looked pretty normal but down near the tip it looked a bit like someone snuck a ping pong ball in there one night whilst I slept.
No one, however, had ever mentioned it to me. Were they being polite? Was it all in my head?
I asked my wife: do I have a big nose? The awkward silence that followed was telling, but not definitive. I dropped the subject - for good, I thought.
Just last week, though, I got my answer. It arrived, completely out of the blue, during a pleasant breakfast with my four-year-old son.
"Daddy, you have a big nose," he said.
Thank you! Thank you for your honesty. It's like a breath of fresh air inhaled through giant nostrils. Now I know the truth, you little Abraham Lincoln, and I don't care if you chopped down that cherry tree.
"My nose is small, daddy." OK kid, that's enough.
It was then that I realized that if I ever want the unvarnished truth about something I'll need to find someone who hasn't perfected the little white lie. It's not that young kids don't ever lie, it's just that their lies are all terribly transparent ones, like "yes daddy, I asked mama and she said that I could have ice cream and cookies for breakfast. And coffee. And beer."
But when it comes to matters of opinion, it's straight truth. It's not all criticism either. When I hear my son say "Ooo, daddy, you look fancy," I know I've done something right. It's nice to know that, even with my big nose, I could still possibly make it into the pages of PQ Magazine (Preschoolers Quarterly).
I don't want to turn this into an episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things, but now that my oldest son has hit age four I've got to say that some of the things he says are amongst the darndest I've ever heard. A few minutes before giving me the nose news, my son took an interest in my new haircut.
"Daddy, I like your haircut," he said. "You look like a different man. I'm going to call you Father."
Well then.
The takeaway here is that if you ever have a question that you want an honest answer to — Does this belly button ring look good? Can I wear socks with these sandals? Should I have smoked all that crack when I was mayor? — ask a four-year-old.
If you want their full respect, though, make sure you have a nice haircut.
