Gee, thanks for the ego boost, kid

The other day my sister-in-law called and said her 9-year-old son wanted to talk to me about video games. Since my knowledge of video games is way less than his, I was a little puzzled but took the phone anyway.

"My friend and I have been planning this video game all week and I want to know how to make it," he said.

"Uh ..." I said.

"It has eighteen levels, and a monster made out of fire that you can only kill if you get this water pump and shoot its arms off --"

"Er, that's nice ..."

"And I looked at this site about video games but it didn't really explain things so can you tell me how to make a game?"

I hated to disillusion him, but I had no choice. "Well, to be honest, at this point you probably know more about making video games than I do."

"Oh." A pause. "That's really sad!"

Fortunately he then proceeded to tell me about the cool fantasy book series he was reading, so all was apparently forgiven.