Toy Gremlins
I like being a father. It’s a really fun job most of the time, but even when you are in the middle of hard times, you are still glad to be a dad. The old saying is true, “Children are a poor man’s wealth.” I would argue you don’t have to be poor to appreciate the riches children can bring.
I’m not the world’s best dad. When we first had children, I was more interested in playing video games than bringing home formula for the baby. It’s a true story, and it doesn’t make me very proud, but I have tried to be a better father since then. My wife and I are truly blessed to be school teachers, especially since we had the same vacation days as our children. It meant we could spend not only some quality time with each other, but we could find some quantity time as well.
I have a sense of humor, which sometimes is at the expense of the kids. They like my “dad humor”, even though it usually is something stupid. For example, to keep myself entertained while driving, I like to reinterpret the road signs. If the sign says “Shoulder Work”, I usually rotate my shoulder around and say out loud to no one in particular, “Yes”. As in, “Yes, my shoulder is working fine, and I appreciate the state being interested in my health.” I take it personally when I am driving down the road and I see the sign that says “Dip”. I feel sorry for the person standing at the side of the road after I see the sign, “Dip Ahead”.
When I see the sign “Slow - Children Playing” I regard it as a cruel statement about someone’s kids, and I especially feel bad when the kids learn to read and have to be confronted with that sign the rest of their lives.
After a sample of my humor, the following story will make more sense. If you remember the movie “Gremlins”, there is a character in the show called “Stripe”. This movie is basically about how gremlins can wreck havoc on a town. The cute gremlin is “Gizmo”, but if you violate the rules about giving him water, food after midnight, or exposing him to bright light, then “Gizmo” multiplies into mischievous and dangerous gremlins, including the viscious “Stripe”.
I highly recommend this show if you haven’t seen it. Of course, my oldest daughter saw this show with us when she was three years old, and soon the toy shelves were crowded with little stuffed gremlins for parent to shower on their over-indulged children.
I was in my twenties, and not the richest dad in town, and there was no way I was going to buy one of these over-priced items for my kids. But that didn’t stop me from playing with it at the store. I did remember how frightened my daughter had been when she watched “Gremlins”, especially of the wicked gremlin called “Stripe”. I bet you can almost see where this is going.
So there we are shopping in the toy store, filled with thousands of items no kid ever really needs but can somehow convince you they can’t live without. Usually a tantrum or two is thrown in the store, which boosts sales and makes the clerks happy. But when I looked at the price tag for “Stripe”, I knew there was no way this stuffed animal was going home with us. But that doesn’t mean I can’t create a permanently scarring memory for my daughter.
She is just around the corner from me and hasn’t seen the stuffed gremlins yet. This is the daughter who complained when she got the “Snuggles” bear from the fabric softener commercial. She looked at that stuffed animal and said, “It doesn’t talk.” So let’s just say she is still in the age bracket where toys should be alive.
I grab “Stripe” by the back of his neck and get ready for the surprise. She looks trustingly up at her loving father, and what does he do? I jabbed “Stripe” in her face, and I’m sure I growled or did some stupid thing like that.
Of course she begins to scream, and continues screaming as she turns and runs right out of the store. Luckily my wife is standing nearby, and after she gives me a dirty look, she runs after our firstborn and catches up with her halfway across the mall.
What am I doing? I am paralyzed with laughter. I put Stripe back and continue to pay for this moment of idiocy even today. I reminded my wife of the story and she called me a “jerk”.
I like being a father. Even though sometimes I am a jerk.
Showing posts with label surprise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surprise. Show all posts
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Lost Toenail -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dane Allred
Lost Toenail
It was the sixties. I was probably nine or ten, and liked being a daredevil. As kids we used to climb way up in trees to make tree houses out of scavenged pieces of wood. We were in an area where new houses were being built, and stray lumber was all over the neighborhood. They were never really completed, but it was fun to see if you could carry a big piece of wood up the tree and not fall. It’s amazing none of us ever fell and broke our necks.
I’m speaking about a time 40 years ago when kids got to run around the neighborhood without a parent hovering close by. We would play baseball for hours and never see a parent. My friend Sonny Carter and I would wander the fields turning over old pieces of wood to catch mice with our bare hands. If you want to try this highly satisfying adventure, remember to push your knuckles over their neck so they can’t bite your fingers. We never hurt the mice, but it was fun to see if we could catch them.
I also remember catching drones with our bare hands. Drones don’t have stingers, since their job is to keep the hive cool by beating their wings. There was a camper parked in Mark Tuttle’s driveway and we decided it would be a good idea to catch the drones, roll the window to the camper open a bit and trap the bees behind the glass and between the screen. For some reason, this was fun, and amazingly, no one got stung.
I was also one of the first adopters of the new skateboard technologies of the sixties. How I never got a broken arm is another miracle. We’re not talking neoprene wheels like the boards have today. The wheels were seriously Fred Flintstone rock-like wheels. When you hit a small pebble with these rock wheels, the board stopped immediately and you went flying. We thought it was fun.
I played Little League, so when we weren’t playing a game with another team or making our own game in the neighborhood, we practiced in the back yard.
Unfortunately, little brothers like to hang around their older brothers, and Patrick Tuttle was behind me one time when I was taking a heroic swing with a baseball bat. I broke his nose. I felt terrible, but nobody blamed me for the injury, even though it was my fault. We were boys, and this was what boys did back in the sixties.
We even thought it was cool when a giant rat was found in one of the garages in the neighborhood. None of us had ever seen a real live rat – sure we had seen mice, but this was a rat! I don’t really remember seeing it, but we spent an afternoon waiting for the adult who was trying to kill it with a bat to bring us out the evidence. I think they let us watch as the dead rat was carried to the garbage.
A side note will give you an idea how suspect boys with imagination can be. I had been practicing magic tricks in my front yard, waving my magic wand mysteriously as Debbie Radmall rode by on her bicycle. Evil boys from the sixties obviously have magic powers, because as she rode by her back tire popped with a loud bang. She glared at me, looked at her flat tire, gave me another dirty look and walked her bike home without a word. I know she thought I had given her a flat tire, but I knew I hadn’t. There was no way to convince her otherwise, so I didn’t try.
So when another chance to impress the ladies of the neighborhood came along, it was hard to resist. I was riding my stylish stingray bicycle, but I had forgotten to wear my shoes. It’s easy to ride without shoes, since the pokey ten speed pedals were a couple of years in my future. But the road doesn’t care if you aren’t wearing shoes, because as I sped up to an impressive speed and zoomed by the local females, I put my foot a little bit too low on the pedal. A sickening scrape and immediate pain told me this was not to be a day of astounding bicycle gymnastics. I put on my best game face and road back to the house grimacing.
The toe pounded furiously, and after a couple of days, blood was building up behind the toenail and my dad thought a good way to relieve the pain would be to heat a needle and push it through the toenail. The blood did come rushing out and it did relieve the pain.
The toenail fell off a week later.
It was the sixties. I was probably nine or ten, and liked being a daredevil. As kids we used to climb way up in trees to make tree houses out of scavenged pieces of wood. We were in an area where new houses were being built, and stray lumber was all over the neighborhood. They were never really completed, but it was fun to see if you could carry a big piece of wood up the tree and not fall. It’s amazing none of us ever fell and broke our necks.
I’m speaking about a time 40 years ago when kids got to run around the neighborhood without a parent hovering close by. We would play baseball for hours and never see a parent. My friend Sonny Carter and I would wander the fields turning over old pieces of wood to catch mice with our bare hands. If you want to try this highly satisfying adventure, remember to push your knuckles over their neck so they can’t bite your fingers. We never hurt the mice, but it was fun to see if we could catch them.
I also remember catching drones with our bare hands. Drones don’t have stingers, since their job is to keep the hive cool by beating their wings. There was a camper parked in Mark Tuttle’s driveway and we decided it would be a good idea to catch the drones, roll the window to the camper open a bit and trap the bees behind the glass and between the screen. For some reason, this was fun, and amazingly, no one got stung.
I was also one of the first adopters of the new skateboard technologies of the sixties. How I never got a broken arm is another miracle. We’re not talking neoprene wheels like the boards have today. The wheels were seriously Fred Flintstone rock-like wheels. When you hit a small pebble with these rock wheels, the board stopped immediately and you went flying. We thought it was fun.
I played Little League, so when we weren’t playing a game with another team or making our own game in the neighborhood, we practiced in the back yard.
Unfortunately, little brothers like to hang around their older brothers, and Patrick Tuttle was behind me one time when I was taking a heroic swing with a baseball bat. I broke his nose. I felt terrible, but nobody blamed me for the injury, even though it was my fault. We were boys, and this was what boys did back in the sixties.
We even thought it was cool when a giant rat was found in one of the garages in the neighborhood. None of us had ever seen a real live rat – sure we had seen mice, but this was a rat! I don’t really remember seeing it, but we spent an afternoon waiting for the adult who was trying to kill it with a bat to bring us out the evidence. I think they let us watch as the dead rat was carried to the garbage.
A side note will give you an idea how suspect boys with imagination can be. I had been practicing magic tricks in my front yard, waving my magic wand mysteriously as Debbie Radmall rode by on her bicycle. Evil boys from the sixties obviously have magic powers, because as she rode by her back tire popped with a loud bang. She glared at me, looked at her flat tire, gave me another dirty look and walked her bike home without a word. I know she thought I had given her a flat tire, but I knew I hadn’t. There was no way to convince her otherwise, so I didn’t try.
So when another chance to impress the ladies of the neighborhood came along, it was hard to resist. I was riding my stylish stingray bicycle, but I had forgotten to wear my shoes. It’s easy to ride without shoes, since the pokey ten speed pedals were a couple of years in my future. But the road doesn’t care if you aren’t wearing shoes, because as I sped up to an impressive speed and zoomed by the local females, I put my foot a little bit too low on the pedal. A sickening scrape and immediate pain told me this was not to be a day of astounding bicycle gymnastics. I put on my best game face and road back to the house grimacing.
The toe pounded furiously, and after a couple of days, blood was building up behind the toenail and my dad thought a good way to relieve the pain would be to heat a needle and push it through the toenail. The blood did come rushing out and it did relieve the pain.
The toenail fell off a week later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)