Osiris, meet Jesus. Jesus, Osiris.
Yesterday I was a guest speaker at my son's school. Each week a new student becomes The Chosen One, he/she whose ego shall be inflated by week's end. This was my son's special week, so I volunteered to come talk to the class about my job, specifically about my work in Egypt. I figured that'd be more interesting to four-year-olds than, say, XML or Gantt charts.
Now, I've given presentations to CEO's and government officials, to audiences skeptical and outright hostile, but I gotta say prepping for the preschoolers ranks right up there in terms of pre-show jitters. I mean, blowing a pitch to a client is one thing. Embarrassing your child the very first time you get a chance in front of his peers, that scars for life.
I now realize that talking about Ancient Egypt to a group of kids who don't understand the concept of death is extremely difficult. How to explain the mummy? ("The wrappings keep the Egyptians cool when they take forever-naps.") I did get a bit of a kick out of introducing the class to some of the Egyptian pantheon of gods, especially as this is a Catholic school. I had visions of the tots explaining to their parents that they learned about Osiris, Lord of the Dead, at school. Multiculturalism, kids. Teach the controversy.
At one point I introduced a finger puppet of a pharaoh. I explained that he was the leader of Egypt, that he wore a headdress that made him feel powerful like a lion, and that he ruled everything he could see with absolute power. At this point one of my son's friends exclaimed "Just like President Bush!" No, I'm not kidding. I only wondered if he meant the puppet part or the absolute power part.
"More than you know, kid, more than you."
Posted on September 24, 2005 to the category called Egypt The Darnedest Things .
