From A to B without a glitch

In Disney Pixar's movie, "A Bug's Life," there's a scene at the beginning where the ants are plodding along in a line. They are steadily moving forward in their goal of carrying the food to the designated spot - "the ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah..." Suddenly, an errant leaf falls in their path and panic ensues - "the line, the line!" How do they get from Point A to Point B now? Pure chaos could have ensued except for a suggestion from a crazy thinking ant that they simply go around the leaf. Crazy.

This is part of Kevin and Andy's (golly, please not Paul too) personality that, well, drives me nuts sometimes. Deep down, I know that I probably can't change my husband, but I still throw curve balls at him every once in a while just to see him all flummoxed and panicky.

"Honey, Paul's coming outside with you."
"But I have to water the yard."
"Yes, that would be outside too. Take Paul."
"But I have to water the yard."
"Yes, and you're gonna have to watch Paul too."
"But.."
"You can do it, honey."

And he stares at me for 2 beats as if I'm an alien.

Point A (standing inside) to Point B (outside watering the yard). And he is completely flabbergasted as to how he is supposed to get to Point B when you throw in a Curve Paul.

Andy's not much different. Yesterday, the kid was holding a drink and two toys and came around to Paul's side of the van to get in. It's a pet peeve of mine, since there is a perfectly useful door on the other side of the van for Andy to get in and guess what? It's right there by his seat in the van. So it drives me insane when the kid wants to stomp all over our trash in the van just to get to his seat. It's perfectly good trash without his footprints all over it. So I said "Andy, go get in your side."

He was baffled. "But I can't open the door." Because his hands are full. And I sighed and in my best, summer-of-learning-how-to-fit-into-society voice, I said, "Why don't you set something down and then open the door?"

He was stunned that I would suggest such a thing. And not because he doesn't want his precious toys on the ground, but because that's a deviation from the line - a line, I'll grant you, of his own design that incorporated the fact that he had zero free hands. Maybe I'm being too hard on the kid here, since he didn't just stand on his side of the van staring at the handle; he did think ahead about coming to the side that would be opened by mom. But then I threw a leaf in his path...

And the kid stared at me for 2 beats like I was an alien.