Last Christmas, I got a piece of sand art as a gift. It is a twelve-inch disc that rests in a plastic base. Half of it is filled with grains of sand of varying colors, sizes, and weights. The other half is filled with a liquid, which I assume is water. When you flip it over, the sand on the top half will slowly and unpredictably fall towards the base. This is the art part, watching the sand slowly fall and sift to the bottom to create a new sandscape on the floor each time.

After opening it Christmas morning, a twelve-year-old Anthony appeared by my side asking about it. After I explained what it was and how it worked, he said it was sorta lame. I said I didn't think it was lame at all. He asked what is so cool about a bunch of sand going from there to there. I said that what made it neat, really neat, is that they architected it to take exactly one hour for every grain of sand to re-settle at the base, making it a super-swank hourglass. To this, he became, understandably, intrigued, and impressed as I saw his bright mind working to process the mechanics of this new information.

On some random day, weeks to months later, he came to me and said my sand art hourglass was broken. In fact, it was very broken as it took a different amount of time for the sand to fall each time you flipped it. Oh. Really. In the middle of one of his sentences defending his claim, the look on my face made him stop talking. He realized he had been had, and the sand art did not double as an hourglass. To this realization, he rolled his eyes, turned, and walked off.

I kept the sand art on my office window sill. If I turned from my desk to think about a problem, I would flip it and watch the sand fall during my ruminations. Recently, I moved it in front of a fish tank we keep in the boys' room. I did so for a few reasons. When thinking about a problem, I sometimes watch the fish, and I sometimes watch the sand art. I thought I could try putting these two watchable things together. As an added benefit, the falling sand looked neat with the lit-up tank and fish in the background. Anthony saw me standing there shortly after setting it up, noticed the sand art next to the tank, and asked what I was doing. I told him I thought the fish enjoyed watching the sand art. He contemplated leaving this bait on the hook but couldn't resist. He began multiple explanations about how that just could not be. Something about fish not caring about falling sand or not having brains sophisticated enough to notice or appreciate such a thing. Lucky for me, the fish were totally clustered next to the new object and appeared to be taking it in. I interrupted his lecture to point to the fish, seeming to watch the falling sand. He studied the scene for a moment, then rolled his eyes, turned, and left.

A few weeks later, Anthony found me in front of the fish tank again. I had just flipped the sand art and moved to the other end of the tank studying a new mystery snail we recently added. Anthony asked what I was doing. I pointed out the new snail to him. After a few beats, he pointed at the sand art and how no fish were watching it as they were all on the other end of the tank. He said that the fish didn't seem to care for the sand art anymore. He looked at me with satisfaction. I told him that it made sense. Dubious, he asked why. I told him they were all down here so they could see my face, which is one of the few things more beautiful and interesting than sand art.

Roll Eyes.

Turn.

Walk away.