What If ....?

"Why ... ???" has been usurped in the boy's daily arsenal of quick-fire questions lately.  It used to be "Why do we stop at red lights?  .... Why red?  ..... Why not stop when the light turns green?" or "Why do we go to sleep at night?  .... Why can't we stay up all the time?"  Those were pretty easy to answer.  It didn't take a lot of thinking to give a fairly accurate and informative answer.  Lately though, he's progressed to the next level.  Now its "What if a volcano exploded?" and "What if we ran into an electrical pole and knocked it over?"  These kinds of questions seem simplistic.  But once he's sucked you into his vortex of insatiable inquisitiveness, you immediately find yourself in intellectually dangerous terrain requiring a P.h.D in applied mathematics and a college level physics text.  Take the earlier stated "What if a volcano exploded?". Its the sort of question-answer scenario that sends me racing to the liquor cabinet afterwards for some brain-numbing libationary relief:


The Boy: What if a volcano exploded in our backyard?
Me: We don't have a volcano in the backyard, Jarrett.
TB: ....... What if we did, and it exploded?
Me: We would run away really fast.
TB: ....What if we couldn't get away in time?
Me: Then we would burn up.
TB:  ...... Why? What would make us burn up?
Me: The lava.
TB:  How?
Me:  The lava is so hot that it incinerates anything that it touches.  
TB:  What does "incinerate" mean?
Me:  Burn. 
TB:  Even our bones??
Me:  Yes.
TB:  How?
Me:  Lava is so hot that it turns them into ash.
TB:  .......... I don't want to burn up!!!!!
Me:  Don't worry that wouldn't happen...... 
TB:  Whew!!!!
Me:  ............The poisonous gases would kill us before the lava ever had a chance to burn us up.
TB:  .... What kinds of poisonous gases??
Me: ................... I need to go lie down for a little while, Jarrett .......