Foreign Economies

One of the things that I notice as the girls start to play together is that I am being excluded from their plays.*

They have developed, in our back yard, a strange system of exchange involving pebbles.

I don't know how much the pebbles are worth.  For reasons that I can't fathom, some of the pebbles are worth more than others, but I see no reason for this.  Perhaps if I were an anthropologist, I would be able to tease out the meanings of these lapidary economies, but I'm not, and I can't, and it's all a big mystery for me.

When I ask, they won't explain.

In fact, they greet my attempts at understanding with hooting derision.  So I am going to take my rocks and go home.
 
*Hallelujah and rejoicing, on the one hand, and on the other, I am sad.