I remember the look on my parent’s faces like it was yesterday. That look of shock, dismay, and “wow…he really is an idiot” all wrapped up in a single mushroom-cloud blossoming above their heads. The first inquiry that usually passed through pursed lips was the obvious question of wanting to know why I did what I did. The response they received was one that had been passed down by children from generation-to-generation since the origins of man.
“I don’t know.”
As infuriating as that answer is to every parent around the globe, it’s generally true. Honestly, you could have hooked me up to an EEG machine and seen absolutely zero brain activity during the alleged timeframe in question. More often than not, it was just something that seemed interesting for me to do at the time. Consequences? Well, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead yet.
Before I had children, my parents and I would occasionally sit around and laugh about some of the ridiculous things that my siblings and I did in our childhood. Most of them were your typical, harmless acts of juvenile boneheadedness. However, there was always that occasional feat of overconfident recklessness coupled with just enough dumb luck to leave us unscathed in the end. Stitches were sometimes involved, but we were kids and that’s what kids do. Oh how we laughed!
Now I have children of my own. I’m not laughing so much anymore…
Since it was just before Halloween, we’ll go ahead and channel a little Hitchcock for the moment in order to set the proper ambiance. Visualize the shower scene from the movie “Psycho”. This time, however, it wasn’t Norman Bates with the blade outside of the curtain. It was my son, with my wife’s razor on the inside. There were no shrieks from Marion Crane….only my wife. As I rushed into the bathroom, my wife stood looking into the shower. Arms extended, mouth open. Our son? Standing in the shower, razor in hand, and three chunks of hair missing from the side of his head.
They say that imitation is the best form of flattery. “They” probably never had children attempt to shave their heads.
Before I could wrap my mind around what had just transpired, my parent’s furrowed brows unwillingly became mine. The blood rushed to my head, then…ka-blooey. Radioactive fallout in my bathroom. Like a trained monkey, the words just fell out of my mouth. Verbatim, as was poetically performed by my parent’s thirty years earlier.
Before I could wrap my mind around what had just transpired, my parent’s furrowed brows unwillingly became mine. The blood rushed to my head, then…ka-blooey. Radioactive fallout in my bathroom. Like a trained monkey, the words just fell out of my mouth. Verbatim, as was poetically performed by my parent’s thirty years earlier.
“What were you thinking?”
I wanted to cover my mouth in humiliation, but couldn’t risk letting down my psycho-dad intimidation leverage at that point. Of course I know what he was thinking. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Same as his pop thirty years earlier. Yet I asked anyway? I’m beginning to wonder if there is some sort of pre-programmed, primordial genetic code that kicks in upon birth of your offspring. Hmm. I smell grant money…
After the customary barrage of rants and lectures about making choices and thinking things through, it was time to sit down and survey the damage. It was down to the scalp, but salvageable.
After stern lectures like these, the quiet moments following are normally reserved as a time of reflection between a man and his son. Men address it and move on. Done. However, while I attempted to cover the boy’s handiwork with my clippers, I found myself considering the various formations that I could achieve from connecting those three spots shaved into the side of his head. My mind immediately wandered to a courtside scene from the movie “White Men Can’t Jump”.
“You got a ‘Z’ in your 'fro!”
That quiet moment digressed into giggling. My son, seeing his snickering father with a pair of clippers in hand, panicked. Thinking that I was about to follow through on one of my earlier rants about shaving him clean in my image, he started to sob.
After some reassuring words, creative use of hair gel, and a semi-reparative fade cut, life returned to normal for the boy. His hair grows pretty fast, so he would just have to endure a couple school days and Halloween parties. Thankfully, Indiana Jones was the costume of choice this year. Doctor Jones’ hat is his patented trademark, so the costume would actually work in his favor. Although I did stand by with a pair of Chuck Taylors, just in case we decided to finish that “Z”.
When I relayed the episode to my parents, I’m pretty sure that I could make out the slightest satisfaction coming from the other end of the phone. Karma’s celestial realignment had come full-circle. Instead of it being me regurgitating the “I don’t know” alibi to my parents after blowing up the neighbor’s toys with roman candles and firecrackers, it was my son. Same oblivious look, same steadfast delivery. Just without all of the explosions, pyrotechnics, and smoldering G.I. Joe figures in the background, that is.
I had spent a lifetime attempting to defend the “I don’t know” party-line. Now, without warning, I found myself on the other side. Genetically coerced into recycling time-honored dad questions to obvious childhood disaster scenarios. I wondered what other conventional zingers might be headed our way. Would preparedness help preempt the inevitable? My parents would have been a great asset in providing this background intelligence, of course, but why would they cheat themselves out of free skit comedy?
Molecular genetics theories aside, I’m resigned to the fact that I’m unconsciously wired to continue delivering these pointless inquiries to my children, just as my father and his father’s fathers had, since the beginning of mankind. Retrospectively, and apparently inescapably, if they all jumped off a bridge, I guess I would too.
