# what was the question?

      A long, long time ago, a six-year-old once asked me--"Mommy, where did I come from?"  I spent a half an hour carefully explaining in terms a six-year-old could understand how babies get here, when they weren't here before, and thought I had done a pretty good job. The six-year-old in question gave me an odd look, and said "but where did I come from?" . The six-year-old had expected to be told the name of the town in which she was born, because someone had mentioned it in school.

what was the question?

    When my daughter, now grown, was about 10 years old, she once looked up from her homework and asked "Mom, is the answer 4?"  What a cosmically weird question. 4 is the answer to so many things. According to the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", 4 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything--oops, spoiler. 4 is the answer to-- how many legs does a cow have? or a table ?(usually) or any quadruped? --what is 6-2?, and infinite mathematical variations on that theme-- how many years between Olympics? or leap years?  4 may be the answer to how old are you?--or how many pieces of pizza are left? It can be the answer to so many things. I began to see what Douglas Adams saw in 4 as a universal answer. But what was the question?