Back when I and my two siblings were small enough to share a bathtub, our parents bought each of us a dinosaur-shaped bar of soap. I got a Brontosaurus, my older brother got a Tyrannosaurus rex, and my younger sister got a Triceratops. There was probably nothing random about this. My parents considered my older brother aggressive, my younger sister defensive, and me placid. My visual memory of that slate-blue bar of soap is still vivid. As I used it (sparingly, to preserve it as long as I could) the pleasing round smoothness of the neck, tail and legs just kept getting rounder and smoother and more pleasing.
Had I already loved and identified with Brontosaurus? It wouldn’t surprise me if my attachment began right then, as I placidly accepted the designation my parents assigned me. But then again, loads of kids love Brontosaurus; way more than Diplodocus or Apatosaurus, who look basically the same. I assume it’s because the meaning of Brontosaurus, which books always mentioned—“Thunder Lizard”—is way cooler than “Deceptive Lizard” (Apatosaurus) or “Double-Beamed” (Diplodocus), which has something to do with the shape of the tail vertebrae, but really, who could care. Continue reading “Bathing with thunder lizard”