My wife and I are alike in many ways. We often find ourselves finishing each other’s sentences or ending conversations with each other’s jokes. Although she won’t admit it, we also have the same sense of humor. Mine may be a shade or twelve darker and slightly more twisted, but she often finds humor in many of the same places as I do. I attribute most of the instances to being married for twelve years. There are also those physical similarities too. The ones that I am referring to, in this case, revolve around that perpetual klutz-factor.
For myself, if there is a thumb to be found with a 20 ounce framing hammer, it’s usually mine. Typically while in full assault mode. Same could be said for the baseboards and their ongoing maiming of my toes. Oh, and let’s not leave out the conspiring staircases that randomly grab my feet in an effort to throw off my graceful sense of equilibrium. This, mind you, while my arms are full of heavy objects. Revisit that cursed toes reference. Even those rocks and sticks that are systematically kicked up by the lawnmower will inevitably plot to hit that invisible bulls-eye permanently affixed to my forehead. The list is endless.
The same could be said for my lovely wife. In fact, her twisted ankles have become somewhat of a running punchline for me and my arsenal of ridicule. Her ankles seem to subconsciously seek out that one, lone pothole in a fifty acre field. A sick, biological mutiny of self-maiming.
Unfortunately for our darling brood, we often find many of these same traits in our children as well. Falling down the stairs, falling up the stairs, falling off stairs…just to give you an idea. Carrying out those fate-tempting illustrations of mayhem that their father often refers to as that “agony of defeat” moment from yesteryear’s “Wide World of Sports” opening scenes. A vast and endless comedy of errors filled with scraps, bruises, and dents...much like we remember self-inflicting upon ourselves as impressionable daredevils.
It’s these memories that prompt me to provide ominous warnings to my children when they see an opportunity to push the envelope. I fully understand the need for kids to learn on their own, much like we did as kids. However, there is a part of me that feels the need to vocally address the associated risks via firsthand experience in the creation of self-induced havoc. To pass along sage advice bestowed upon my youth by a number of industry professionals. General surgeons and orthopedic specialists, that is.
It was one evening after dinner that my daughter received some of this advice from dad, yet proceeded to tempt universal aerodynamics and most of the physical laws of momentum anyway. Much like her father though, she was determined. Mentally hard-headed…and fortunately, physically as well.
We decided to take a walk after a big dinner. It was a nice evening and we thought that the kids could use the fresh air. My two oldest decided to take their Razor scooters along for the trip for entertainment. We walked down our street and up the hill to the next street. Walking up a hill on the first leg meant going down a hill on our return trip. I didn’t give much thought to it at the time. However, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, there was a shimmering disturbance in Newton’s Law.
Our home is situated on a street much like the home that I grew up in. Fairly flat, but surrounded on both sides by large hills. I can vividly remember just how perfect it was for bikes, skateboards, Radio Flyer wagons, and other assorted wheeled projectiles to achieve maximum speed.
And oftentimes associated maximum devastation…
The return trip seemingly channeled the inner Evel Kneival in our children. Previous walks resulted in a slow, careful walk back to the house. This time, however, they looked down the hill and shrugged. Consequences? What consequences? Against my better wishes and in spite of my numerous narratives of personal carnage, they decided to conquer the hill. Son and daughter blazing down the hill on their scooters, well in excess of twenty miles per hour.
My back was turned as I refused to watch the ensuing pandemonium. I awaited the fate's background symphony of twisted metal and carnage. To my relief, they both made it down unscathed. I breathed easy. Maybe my love-hate relationship with asphalt skipped a generation. But then I heard fate’s satirical rebuttal.
“Let’s do it again!”
For some reason, I turned to watch their second descent. I should really have my head examined. I lived this repeatedly as a child. I know better than to watch! Daughter rocketed down the hill at maximum speed yet again. Then, that climatic moment that defies nature’s law of gravity.
She must have hit a rock at the bottom of the hill. As my grandfather used to say, she went “can over tea-kettle”. I looked up and immediately saw Neo’s bullet-dodging scene from the movie “The Matrix” play out right before my eyes. Arms and legs flying everywhere with blinding speed. Only, she was inverted and spinning wildly in the air for a brief, breathless moment, before crashing to the asphalt. Somewhere in the distance, from a circa 1978 color television set, I visualized that infamous ski jumper followed by Jim McKay’s introduction of America to “the agony of defeat”.
There was road rash galore. Arms, elbows, shoulders, and yes, helmet too. The fact that not a single scrap adorned the lower half of her body just solidified the fact that she indeed went tea-kettle first while sliding across the pavement. Luckily, there were no broken bones or missing teeth. Much like that “Matrix” scene though, it was really kind of tough to see “what-landed-where” at that rate of speed.
Much to my amazement, my son continued to follow through on his second descent as well. Even after watching this cataclysmic event unfold. He sped right by his battered sister and her fresh road rash. So much for that witness deterrence aspect… Then again, he is my son. If I didn’t learn things the hard way, I wouldn’t have learned anything at all.
Luckily, lightning did not strike twice.
As for my daughter though, there was a bottle or two of antiseptic and a small cache of band-aids in her future. She was fine though. Shaken, not stirred. She was even back on the scooter the next day. Although since that evening, I have not gone out of my way to suggest any additional after-dinner walks with their scooters.
That evening presented valuable lessons to the family in Newton’s Law of Motion. For everyone except my son, apparently. “For every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction.” I dub this quote the family law of “Kneival-ness”. Though you may be able to avoid rocks, ditches, and associated personal havoc, you can never avoid those genetically-fueled “agony of defeat” moments.
Asphalt is now officially up on me, as well as my family, by a score of thirty-seven to zero. Unfortunately, life has no mercy rule. Better strap on a helmet.
