Location, Location, Lo...Mascot?

Za Boo was musing on the subject of high school mascots earlier this evening, due largely to the fact that Monkey Boy will be starting high school next year and he and I had been discussing, at length, his high school options. He has basically decided on the independent study high school, where he can take high school and junior college classes concurrently, and earn dual credit, but was wistfully noting that the mascot for the local tech high school is a dragon, and, although the mascot is largely irrelevant to him, he would enjoy having a dragon as a mascot, in the event that he was to have a mascot at all.
Za Boo had been amusing herself quietly with a game of solitary Uno during the discussion and, as always, taking in every word. When she realized that Monkey Boy and I's discussion was winding down, she jumped in: "I must start thinking about what high school I will go to," she said, "I will have to decide very near in the future what mascot I will have when I go to high school myself."
Monkey Boy and I both turned and looked at her, startled a bit by her apparently abrupt entrance into the conversation (why, I don't know, though, because we all know she is always listening and quietly processing these things).
"What do you mean, you have to decide what mascot you will have in high school?" I asked, ridiculously oblivious to the fact that the mascot would be a factor in choosing a high school when you are a 9 year old girl.
"Well," she pontificated, "I can be a Cougar, like Ender and The Raven, or an Eagle, like Monkey Boy will probably be, or I can go to the tech high school and be a Dragon, or I might want to be a Bulldog."

It is vital to note, at this point, that a bulldog is the mascot of the cross-town high school; the arch rival high school to the older two kids' high school, and my own Alma-mater.

Always the paragon of calm and rational parenting, I immediately responded "You will not be a Bulldog!!! To do that you have to attend The Bulldog High School! Why would you even say such a thing?!?! You ARE NOT going to The Bulldog High School!"
"Well, Mama," she responded, "I DO like bulldogs better than cougars, because cougars are a type of cat, and bulldogs are dogs. You know how I feel about dogs, Mama."
"Well, be that as it may, you are NOT going to go to The Bulldog High School!!!" I calmly and rationally responded.
"But why, Mama? What's wrong with The Bulldog High School?" Za Boo asked earnestly.
"Well, because, the Cougar High School is better, and it's where your siblings go, and it's better, and, um, well..." and as I was so eloquently summarizing the finer points of why The Cougar High School is the superior learning institution, based, of course, on reasonable and objective criteria, Ender walked in on the discussion.
"What's going on?" he asked, sensing a debate was in progress.
"Za Boo is talking about what high school she wants to go to, based on the mascot," Monkey Boy informed his brother.
Ender looked right at Za Boo, and in an unarguable voice said to her "You do not choose a high school based on its mascot. You chose it based on the quality, where it is located, and, maybe, the people who are going to go there as well." And he walked out of the room.

It was a watershed moment for me; one of those rare moments when you unexpectedly witness all the work you have done in an attempt to teach your child the things he needs to know in order to make good decisions in the world manifesting itself in a simple and profound statement.

We may have a-ways to go yet in helping Za Boo learn these things, but, knowing we have done well by Ender, I feel a whole lot better about our ability to make it happen.