Uh, no, I won't

File this one under: Questions I will NEVER answer yes to.

Went to breakfast with friends yesterday. Afterwards, 13-year-old Gillen took Mark and David into the army-navy surplus store to show them around.

His mom, Jill, dragged me into an antiques shop next door. We'd been gone awhile, so I called to check on the boys. (They were with an adult, David--but it's Gillen and Mark, in an army store, we're talking about here.)

Gillen answered, and said yes, they were still in the surplus store. And then he asked me, in all seriousness, if I would buy Mark a hatchet. "He found one, and he really, really wants it," Gillen said.

"NO!" I answered instantly. Gillen started to plead his case, but I just hung up on him and hurried next door. I found Mark walking around with the hatchet in his hot little hands.

I immediately disarmed him, and he ran off with Gillen. They returned a few minutes later, unsheathing a machete. "Well, can I get this instead?" Mark asked, and I just shook my head.

"Come on!" he protested. "It's not even sharp!"

"No," I said. "Dull just means you'll bleed to death slowly instead of severing your limbs quickly."

I swear, sometimes I don't understand how boys survive childhood long enough to grow into men...