It started out innocently enough.

My family had gathered around the dinner table intent on eating quickly, having our nightly mandatory conversation, and then dispersing to finish our individual evening tasks that we each must accomplish before the impending rush of nine o’clock arrived and with it, the end of the day.

We manage to get through these motions each and every night.

Last week, it went a bit astray.

Blame the end of summer vacation and the beginning of a nightly school routine. Blame a hurried evening as my husband had to make two separate runs to the grocery store as his scatterbrained wife kept forgetting an ingredient for dinner as she completed the process. Blame the scolding of the dogs as they inched their way closer to the table in their eagerness to catch a falling scrap of food, despite it turning out to be a napkin and not a taco morsel.

Blame the following question from my son:

“What came first, the automobile or the airplane?”

I will not bore you with the details as my husband and I delved into what we could recall of the Wright brothers, and modern air travel. It is enough to know we ended up on Henry Ford.

My son asked, “But didn’t Henry Ford invent something besides the automobile (we corrected this, but we are going to ignore this bit of trivia for the story’s sake)?”

As I started to say, “no,” my smarter husband replied, “He invented the assembly line.”

“What is an assembly line?” My son innocently asked.

“Well, imagine we are all building a group of dolls,” I stated. “Now imagine that each of us is in charge of building just one part of the doll.”

I pointed to my daughter, “You would be in charge of putting the doll’s head on its body.”

My husband pointed at my son, “And you would be in charge of painting the eyes.”

I assigned myself the task of making sure the doll’s arms were secure and my husband decided to tackle the torso and legs. This seemed to be an easy enough concept to explain and understand. I thought we had done a good job of it. It was silent at the dinner table. My children’s foreheads were furrowed in thought. I assumed they were contemplating the history of the assembly line. I assumed wrong.

Suddenly it began.

“Why do I have to do the head?” demanded my daughter.

“Yea… I don’t want to paint the eyes. I don’t even know what color they want them,” my son complained.

My son and daughter turned to each other.

“Let’s trade,” my daughter said to my son.

“Okay.” They even went so far as to shake hands over the deal.

It all happened faster than I could blink an eye. I am surprised they did not form a union and demand better pay. I suppose it is only a matter of time. This imaginary assembly line business was doomed before it even ever started.

I guess it is for the best.

I really have no idea how to attach a doll’s arm. But it has to be easier than explaining history. Or dealing with children who have gone on strike.

The poor dolls never had a chance.