"oh, that's nice"

so today was career day at one of the elementary schools, and since i don't have a deadline today i was nominated to go on behalf of the courier herald. i visited seven classes of third-graders, and after my spiel about the paper i would entertain student questions. of course several students felt compelled to tell me who they knew and who they were related to at the paper, and the a few kids told me they were related to people who had been *IN* this news (mostly for bad reasons, like killing people or drug busts)... i'm like, "oh, that's nice." i mean, what do you say to a kid who tells you their cousin was the subject of a front page story about a fugitive arrested by drug enforcement agents?

one class kept obsessing over what happens if somebody puts in their 50 cents at a newsrack and then takes more than one paper. i explained that we just depend on people to be trustworthy and not to steal from us, but the kids kept asking how we caught people or if we had hidden cameras (i had already explained that most of our money comes from advertising revenue, anyway). then one girl piped up: "when my uncle puts in a quarter, he always takes ten papers." what was i supposed to say? "you need to turn that bitch in" or "if i catch him i'm gonna pop a cap in his ass" didn't quite seem appropriate for the setting, so i just said, "oh, that's nice," and went on to the next question.