Absent-Minded-Professor-in-the-Making

One of my nephews is very intelligent and thoughtful and quite absent-minded. His mother tells the story of what happened when he was about six years old. To protect him, I'll use an invented name.
"Shawn, you need to go brush your teeth." Shawn disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared again very shortly.
"Did you brush your teeth?"
"Oh no. I forgot. I just used the bathroom."
"I guess you'll have to go back and try again."
Shawn comes back very soon.
"Did you brush your teeth this time?"
"Uh, no. I forgot again--just used the bathroom."
Mom sighs, "One more try then."
After a brief interval, from the bathroom "Mom, I'm trying, but I just can't go."

That sounds like something his dad, my brother, would have done when he was young. He grew up to be a philosophy professor. Who is to say that bathroom chores deserve one's full concentration when so many more interesting things can be mentally entertained meanwhile?
My other brothers used to love to hide around the corner from where Caleb, this brother of mine, was milking the cow. Unobserved, they had a ringside seat to whatever juicy things Caleb was saying that could be repeated later for everyone's benefit at the supper table.