I put on my perkiest Mary Sunshine face and ask the Grandkid from Hell a simple question: "What would you like for us to do today?"

The boy doesn't answer right away. His mouth goes slack, his eyes become stoic and his head does not move. He suspects I'm speaking Atlántidian.

I snap my fingers close to his face. "Hello in there. You? Me? Do something today?"

His head moves a hair's breath and then, before I'm prepared for it, he transforms himself into a motormouth. "I wanna build me a rabbit trap, Mammy. After I catch one, I'm gonna put him in a cage that I'm gonna build. I need lots of food to put in there 'cause I'm gonna catch me a lot of rabbits. A snack for me would also be appropriate, Mammy. Working hard makes me so hungry."

I consider sharing salient information about the reproductive capabilities of his soon-to-be bunny friends. But I really don't want to have that particular conversation with a kid wearing braces on his teeth and who holds up his britches with a bungee cord.

"Just stay away from last night's leftovers, honey," I tell him. "I may write a book on how to serve meatloaf in fifty different ways."

He gives me the Atlántidian stare again before asking, "Mammy, don't you know anything about catching rabbits?"

I shake my head. "Nope. I'm fresh out of tar and there's not a briar patch within a hundred miles. You're most welcome to build your trap out of yesterday's biscuits. The garbage disposal threw them back at me so they ought to be good for something."

My clever humor appears to be lost on the ten-year-old.

"Just take me down to the open air market for some crates, Mammy, and lose the Uncle Remus schtick. It's politically incorrect."

Thirty minutes later, we are begging Ben the Tomato Man for wooden vegetable crates. One to build a trap, the other to be used as a cage for Brer Rabbit and all of his cousins. Supposedly, that's where they are to live after the kid returns home to begin further training in terrorizing his grandmother.

Tomato Man smiles at our request obviously recalling his own youthful days hunting rabbits, squirrels and other rodents. Clapping his hands in little boy glee, he is way happy to oblige my grandson with flimsy wooden crates. I figure by sundown my yard will be a landmine of booby-trapped carrots and lettuce and will catch more ants than Easter bunnies.

In no time, Tomato Man and the red-headed wonder boy are discussing male matters above my head. Being a woman of discerning taste and wisdom, however, I check out the shelled butterbeans and seedless watermelons while the "boys" study a rendering of the rabbit trap drawn by Ben on the bottom of a cardboard box.

"Dude, that's it! Sweet! Way to go!" The boy high-fives his new best friend who appears to be unsure of which hand to use.

Tomato Man grins and fakes the hand gesture. "Yeah, righto, uh ... Dude."

I drive back home while the motormouth in the back seat fuels the engine of his imagination with the best laid plans of Boy and Tomato Man.

"Go faster, Mammy. I don't want to forget what Mr. Ben told me."

"What's to forget? You take the top off, put in a carrot and take the crate outside to entice the rabbit. It ain't quantum physics, Sugah."

He rolls his eyes like Babe does while trying to explain vector analysis to me. My grandson sighs. "You women will never understand the thrill of the chase."

"Duh," my smart mouth answers without my consent. "If God had meant for women to chase after rabbits, he'd have given us longer legs, thinner waistlines and fluffy cotton tails."

I look in the rearview mirror and catch him doing the eye-rolling thing again. He catches me looking, and grins. It is a golly whopper grin with the power to zap through the hardest heart on the planet. A nanosecond later, he caps it off with a wink.

My heart does a flip-flop because he's a terrific kid and I love him to pieces.

Returning the boy's grin, I heave a big granny'contented sigh.

"That's all, Folks."