"What ARE you?"

[derien]

When we were kids my brother, Eightball, who was then probably 5 years old, was playing in the mud with a similarly aged boy, the nephew of one of our neighbors.  He had the exact same shade of brown hair as our neighbor did; probably the whole family had the same shade of hair.  Eventually they spoke to one another - Eightball could go for a long time without speaking, often, but perhaps some disagreement came up as to what would be built in a particular area - and the other little boy looked at him and said, "What are you?  You're not a person.  People have brown hair."  (I don't suppose Eightball bothered to answer that.)