“What happened here?” Michael asked his wife, Sheryl, as they entered the house. The babysitter lay asleep on the couch, but the living room looked like a war zone, with stuff everywhere. The couple’s three-year-old Bobby was nowhere to be seen, hopefully asleep in his room.
Sheryl looked around the room. “Oh no, it looks like we had a give-a-mouse-a-cookie situation here.”
“What do you mean?” Michael said.
“It means that one thing led to another, which led to another and so on. There was no stopping this train. Bobby started over here, finger painting. Then he had to wash his hands, and while looking in the mirror, he realized that he should put on a fake mustache. Bobby ran over here and opened the disguise drawer to put it on. Then Bobby realized he needed to get out the design-your-own-French-beret kit that your sister gave him. But once he had the beret, he realized he needed to get out the bread maker to make a baguette—over here—but we didn’t have any flour. So Bobby decided to pretend to make the baguette with playdough.”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Michael yelled. The babysitter jumped up off the couch abruptly. She looked dazed. “How many steps are there in this chain?”
“47,” Sheryl said. She turned to the babysitter. “Give a mouse a cookie?”
The babysitter replied, “Give a mouse a cookie.”