The Lost Art of Aging Gracefully

‘Tis the Season.  The time for a plethora of regurgitated “You Know You’re Turning Forty When…” jokes.  You may have heard a few of these.  “Your new easy chair has more options than your car.”  “People call you at 9 pm and ask if they woke you up.”  “Conversations with people your own age become a duel of ailments.”  Typical amateur-hour, tongue-in-cheek humor.  I will admit that the last of those hits rather close to home though.

To the satisfaction of Hallmark cards and Spencer Gifts stores everywhere, I always had this mental image of hitting my 40^th much like a train slowly cresting the top of a mountain.  Sluggishly decelerating, following the last desperate attempts to retain the youthfulness of my 30ish body and mindset.   Looking over my shoulder one last time on my three decade ascent, before rounding the top and officially declaring my youth a DOA.  I envisioned that the accompanying post-summit descent would start slowly and pick up momentum as the years passed. 

What I hadn’t expected though, was for my body to completely jump the tracks as it neared the top and meteor violently towards the Earth in a blazing death spiral.  Then again, my life has always seemed firmly planted in the oft-magical world of fate and irony.  It has a lifelong public record of ad-libbing and creating its own satirical punch-lines when the prospect of self-humiliation presents itself.    

Said tracks came out from underneath of me a few weekends ago.  My father, father-in-law, and I spent an entire day installing new vinyl railing on my front porch.  It was a lot of running up and down stairs, cutting, drilling, squatting, and more running up and down stairs.  We put in some long hours that day, but managed to get the majority of it completed.  It was only after I had developed the inguinal hernia a day or two later, that it became apparent my body was of the firm belief that it was more a two or three day job.     

Precisely.  A hernia less than three weeks before my 40^th birthday.  Of course, when people ask how it happened, I don’t have that riveting, extreme-sports story to fall back on.  The one where I walk away from an insanely perilous stunt…with only a hernia and bruised ego.  No skydiving with a snowboard, no kayaking over a waterfall, and no participating in the “Running of the Bulls” with a red jumpsuit.  Not in the cards.  Somehow, hernia via vinyl rail installation just seems to lack that overall manly luster and accompanying prestige.

Truthfully, in the back of my mind, I always thought there was a common misconception about hernias only happening to “older gentlemen who still think they’re athletes”.  Apparently not.  They also happen to “older gentlemen who overdo home improvement projects”.  “Man law” blasphemy defined…

Ringing in my birthday with such mockingly dark overtones is exactly what I should have expected.  I make it a habit to approach life with a belief once penned by an 18^th century Danish philosopher.  “Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it, but cherished by those who do."  To that point, I have decided to travel my remaining 30s with a snare drum and cymbal attached to my side for the opportunistic rim shot.  Oh, and a pre-recorded laugh-track on standby. 

Life has emphatically announced that there will be no slow and orderly descent into my 40s.  My tranquil Hallmark vision of cresting that mountaintop gracefully was quickly replaced by the unpleasant image of a rusty car transmission seizing up one day before the warranty expires.  Now well-versed on this pending expiration date, I’ve added both Kevlar and a hard hat to my birthday wish list. 

After seeing a host of doctors, it was determined that surgery was required.  Days of hounding them incessantly and laying on the urgency of “getting me fixed quick”, I finally received a call on my surgery date.  Rim shot, please.  The day of my 40^th birthday.  Cue laugh-track.  But wait, it gets better.  Not only on the same day, mind you…but at the exact time of my birth as well.  Red flags and premonitions abound!  Good luck penning this one, Hallmark!

Reminded on a daily basis of just how eerily unpredictable irony and fate can be, my superstitions got the better of me.  I quickly rescheduled the surgery for August.  I'm abruptly equipped with this newly-mangled mental image of turning 40...and this dark, celestial alignment of events was scheduled to take place on my birthday as well as my exact time of birth? 

Maybe I have seen too many “Twilight Zone” episodes as a kid or too many “Final Destination” films.  I’m thinking “Man has uneasy premonition and doesn’t get on plane.  Plane explodes upon takeoff.”  Just go ahead and substitute “surgery” and “hernia” in that sentence wherever you see fit.

When all of this is over, I plan on shopping my chilling account to Spielberg and DreamWorks Studios.   Although in the end, Pixar just may be the better fit.

Personality Goes a Long Way

By the time our third child was born, I felt like a seasoned pro.  You develop that intuitive sixth sense as to what your children are thinking, even before they start thinking it.  Anticipating in advance of what they’ll do in order to preempt subsequent catastrophe.  What I had forgotten about, though, were their subtle personality differences throughout their development. 

Our son was our first born.  Being the oaf that I am, I was deathly afraid that I would break or maim him as a baby.  He was more or less raised in bubble wrap by my wife and me.  In turn, he always seemed a little more cautious as a toddler.  Now, however, he barrels down the street on his bike in excess of 30 mph and is an extreme roller coaster fanatic.  He’s the thriller seeker, the envelope pusher.  The experimentee of all-things road rash.  He represents the epitome of mental mutiny.

Our oldest daughter was second.  She was our climber and our “button-pusher”.  There were several instances where I would find her standing on the dining room table.  I’d pull her down, only to find her back up there five minutes later…waiting for some kind of reaction.  Well into her childhood now, she can still be found power-vaulting over the couch like an Olympic gymnast as well as continuing to fine-tune the art of pushing her brother’s buttons.  Her M.O. is apparently plowing the status quo.

Our youngest daughter is just starting to come into her own.  Fiercely independent and vocal immediately come to mind.  We walk one way, she sprints the other.  Moving her away from rummaging through a kitchen cabinet is often met with unrepentant physical and verbal rebellion.  Although of independent body and mind, she’s also much like her siblings in many ways.  Regrettably, both as thrill seeker and climber.  Something that has become painfully apparent in the last couple of weeks.

Upstairs, I heard a frustrated groan coming from my wife.  As such sounds are common place throughout our tranquil abode around bath time, I remained unfazed and continued working with my son on his homework.  Several minutes later, another loud groan was devised, followed by what sounded like the words “poop” and “carpet”.  I winced awkwardly and announced to my son that it appeared as though I would be cleaning the carpet that evening.

Seemed that as my wife filled the tub with water, daughter had apparently scaled it behind her and tossed herself in fully-clothed.  Exhibit: Groan A.  As she picked up child number three, fully-saturated diaper forcefully evacuated its resident contents of number two onto the carpet below.  Groan redux. 

After a brief EPA Superfund clean-up, numerous mental notes on toddler Parkour techniques were jotted down for future bath-related events.  Looking back, I’m really just still amazed at just how much water those diapers actually retain.  I nearly needed a winch and a forklift to get that thing out of the house.  For future potential money-making endeavors, I’m mentally filing away the idea of filling sand bags with Pampers in order to address flood prevention.  Seems like a patent no-brainer to me.

My “Father of the Year” qualifications were enhanced just a few weeks later.  As my wife ran the older kids to swim practice, I offered to keep tabs on our youngest while performing cooking duties on the grill and in the kitchen.  Hey, I multi-task dozens of issues at work every day.  How hard could it be? 

With the meat on the grill, I grabbed number three and quickly moved to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner.  I left the kitchen door to the screened porch open, so that she could power-waddle between rooms unabated.  That should occupy her for a good five to ten minutes.

While working at the sink, I happened to look out the window.  Double-take.  What in the name of Homer J. Simpson just darted across my line of sight?  We’ve had an abundance of small animals stroll through our yard on occasion, but this was larger than I was used to seeing in the daytime.  My eyes widened to the size of dinner plates upon realizing the specific species of this creature.  Laughing and speed-toddling wildly across the backyard was number three…in true jailbreak fashion.

In under two minutes, she was able to open the screen door, descend the stairs, and bolt for freedom.  First, ninja-like climbing abilities.  Now, covert escape tactics.  It appears as though this child has a legitimate future in the cat burglary business.  Cue “Mission: Impossible” intro here.

However, the icing on the cake incident that effectively doubled my age came shortly thereafter.  No longer am I turning 40 next month, as anticipated.  Honestly, 80 now seems more accurate.  Looking back, you think you’ve experienced it all as a parent of three.  Then, there’s that five minutes of sheer terror that redefines your humility and leaves a permanent mark on your psyche…as well as certain articles of clothing.

In the kitchen one afternoon, I saw number three pick something up off of the floor and put it into her mouth.  She was near the dog dish, so I instinctually grabbed her to see if she had shoved a kibble or a bit into her mouth.  In instances such as these, preventative intervention is a prerequisite.  It turned out to be cereal that had fallen from her high-chair.  Crisis averted.

However, with trademarked verbal rebellion now fully deployed, there was a gag and a choke.  As she was delivering her closing arguments, she must have inhaled a second, unseen piece of food.  Choking quickly turned violent.  Panic ensued.  After numerous attempts by my wife and me to clear the blockage, I sprinted to call 911.  Fortunately, she coughed up the obstruction moments before emergency personnel arrived.  Her color returned.  She was shaken, but fine.

The same could not be said for me.  Eventually, my complexion returned as well.  Pale gray.  There were also those dozen or two nightmares that interrupted my lucid slumber that evening.  But hey, at least the older kids got a personal tour of the ambulance, right?  Psychologist Carl Jung once said “to be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful”.  Does this include successfully cutting my lifespan in half?

Subtle differences.  Life served me with a few of those gentle reminders regarding our kids’ subtle differences.  Much like the differences between 120 over 80 and 190 over 120 for blood pressure, 60 and 145 for a pulse rate, and 40 versus 80 in accelerated age.

It’s times such as this that I’m glad our kitchen isn’t carpeted.  “Clean up on aisle three.”

Neighborhood of Not-So Make Believe

Unfortunately, I have become that guy.  The lunatic father yelling at all of the neighborhood kids.  Since I’m the only one yelling, it appears that I’m the only one on-duty these days.  I didn’t complain much at first.  The kids flock from all corners of the block to play in my yard with my kids.  It keeps them entertained.  Keeps them busy.  Tires them out.  What I hadn’t counted on though, was the destruction and mayhem that they would bring with them.

Unsupervised children are just that.  Unsupervised.  Think the old Wild Animal Kingdom specials.  Sometimes they are the pack of elephants stampeding through my landscaping.  Sometimes they are the lion chasing the gazelle, tearing across my rain-soaked lawn on BMX bikes.  In short, they are undomesticated carnivores devouring my property and everything residing in it. 

It appears that my wife and I have been elected, apparently via secret ballot, to serve lone dictatorship over all of the children in the neighborhood.  The Grand Poobas over our mortgaged kingdom as well all inhabitants trekking, plodding, and stomping through it.  Think Ghadafi…minus the disco hair, John Waters ‘stache, and grandiose Village People outfits.  Although I firmly believe that I could pull off one of his electric-purple Bedouin robes, I’m also willing to bet that more than a few passer-bys would likely call social services on me.

You know how it starts.  The way it always does….with a large dog tied to a piece of patio furniture galloping down my driveway and smashing into the side of my new car.  Like I said.  Your typical, everyday scenario.  Ask anyone.  Even that ridiculously irritating car insurance guy with the blue phone on TV would vouch for the normalcy of this kind of debacle on my street.  I don’t necessarily know if he’s on my side, but I know for a fact that the large scrap and noticeable dent in the side of my car certainly is.

I have to admit.  That kid and his dog should have felt pretty lucky to have made it home that afternoon.  I had the unfortunate fates of Luca Brasi and Old Yeller swimming upwards from the darkened recesses of my mind.  However, as my wife and next-door neighbor were both standing witness to said event, they also would have been required to stand state’s witness in the aftermath of my psychotic and verbally educational tirade.  In the end though, I merely bit my tongue, hard…nearly severing it, and walked briskly into my backyard for some much-needed “me” time.  Pursed lips trembling uncontrollably with each and every step, as a wide array of muted profanities attempted full jailbreak.

The following weekend, same kid, sans dog under specific shoot-to-kill orders per totalitarian decree, thought it would be a first-class idea to show my five year old daughter an educational episode of “Family Guy” on his iPhone.  First of all, yes, a ten year old with an iPhone.  I digress.  When my wife questioned him about what he had shown her, he lied and said that it was a video that he had taken of his bike.  How about a video of you taking you and your phone home?  iPhone and patio furniture dog now reside in the same respected company.  Exiled.  Can you hear me now?

Several days later, I happened to look out the window to a group throwing sticks and other assorted items belonging to my children, at my son’s new basketball hoop.  This time, my wife wasn’t around.  I immediately adopted a personalized version of the Castle Doctrine and let loose with a pointly colorful tirade at all of the children within a half mile audible radius.  It somehow concluded with handing over “$250 in cold, hard cash” to pay for a replacement.  Cold, hard cash?  When did my inner-Pacino suddenly make a cameo?

Although I anticipate that these instances will probably continue to make our lives a running punchline, I did reach a breaking point.  The point where I had to stop, count, and mentally wait for my systolic number to return to normal.  Whatever normal is these days. 

While shooting baskets with some of the kids one afternoon, a ten year old girl from down the street thought it would be great fun to drill the basketball into my chest while I was talking to my son.  Missing my chin by mere nanometers, I received an obnoxious laugh and an “I got you”.  Really?  What kind of kid does this?  If I had done that to an adult, as a kid, I would have walked with a clubbed foot for about a month. 

It took me a few seconds to remember that was a child though…and not of blood-relation.  Calmly, and with an over-exaggerated smirk, I picked up the ball and asked how funny it would be if I were to return the favor.  The laughing ceased…and for some reason, we don’t see her around the house much anymore. 

So this is what I have resorted to?  The intimidation and thuggery of children?  I’m the Don Corleone of the neighborhood pre-teens.  “Leave the Nerf gun, take the cannoli.”

I can’t help but to think back on what my friends and I must have put my father through.  I’m pretty sure that we were just as obnoxious.  My money is on “considerably worse”.  I specifically remember him having to stop and count on more than a few occasions, in an effort to avoid tossing one or all of us over the fence for assorted adolescent misguidedness.  Although I never dented his car, showed lewd videos to pre-K kids, or attempted to inflict a broken nose on an adult, I definitely remember a variety of broken doors, windows, and pool covers.  I’m hoping that this isn’t a progressing cycle of havoc. 

As the property despot, it appears as though I have unconsciously adopted the alter-ego of Mr. Rogers.  Minus the cardigan and the whole talking to inanimate toys thing.  Although, I have been known to publicly berate lawn equipment that refuses to start after the first ten, or seventy, pulls.  Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood was gentle and calm.  Simplistic.  Mine has animals dragging patio chairs, la cosa nostra tactics, and a raving thirty-nine year old lunatic. 

Would you be mine?  Could you be mine?  Won’t you be my neighbor?

Deeper Shade of Soul

As I looked into the mirror, lyrics from “A Deeper Shade of Soul”, a song by the 90s fusion band Urban Dance Squad, immediately popped into my head.  “Surprise, surprise; so you rub your eyes…” Thing is, I kept rubbing, but it was still there.  Sparsely scattered throughout my freshly-grown goatee.  My soul patch, my grunge mange, my Shaggy.  It no longer reflected that deeper shade of soul.  What I saw was the lighter shade of old.

The infamous goatee is one of those things that has come and gone since my mid-20s.  It was my youthful change-up from the same-ole-same-ole blandness of everyday me.  Since my head is now clean shaven in the shiny image of a cue ball, it’s basically the extent of what I’m able to mix up in the appearance department.   It’s my lame self-expression of suburban mutiny.  My pointless rebellion of corporate professionalism.  After a few months, it runs its course and vanishes yet again in another tantrum of self-expression and pointless anti-rebellion rebellion.

Squint, blink, blink, squint harder.  I tried several different angles in three separate light sources, but to no avail.  As much as I would try to deny it, they simply weren’t blonde hairs.  My waning optimism humbled.  Execution-style.

Deep down, I have always been a firm believer in the premise that you are only as old as you feel.  Even as I accelerate towards 40 at break-neck speed, I literally still view myself as that carefree, 26 year old lout.  More often than not, this viewpoint also directly conflicts with the physical limitations imposed by Father-time upon my 40 year old carcass.  Limitations that aren’t fully realized until the agonizing aftermaths and their associated maimings have thoroughly run their course.  In retrospect, maimings that may have been avoided if I simply switched my multi-vitamin to their “silver” product line.

I have to admit.  This was new territory for me and it really played with my psyche.  The shaving of the head thing never really bothered me.  It was somewhat trendy and it didn’t actually advertise my genuine ripeness.  This gray business though.  It was truly the first time that I looked into the mirror and viewed myself as a 40 year old man.  I didn’t necessarily like the mental images.

Here I’ve gone from Redbeard, the ruthless and enigmatic pirate of the Mediterranean…to Greybeard.  You guys remember Greybeard.  The pirate on the beach with the blackened bifocal visor and metal detector, who throws his back out trying to pull his treasure from the dunes.  The pirate who takes long afternoon naps before raiding English merchant ships.  The pirate who dons tan polyester shorts coupled with black dress socks and sock suspenders over his wooden leg.  OK, so I made up Greybeard.  However, you have now assembled the visuals running rampant through my head. 

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of Mucilex.  Now get off my lawn!”

Honestly, I should have seen this coming.  Shortly before Apple’s release of the iPad, I heard two guys anxiously discussing the latest tech sensation at a coffee shop.  I merely assumed they were just medical students discussing post-surgical eye care.  Droid, Kindle, and 4G were new Transformers characters until I was educated otherwise by a CNN business report.  Techo-geriatrics or just outright senility?  Quite possibly, a combination of both. 

Of course, I also get those not-so-gentle reminders in my assorted daily dialogues as well.  Last summer, I had a college sophomore as a summer intern at work.  While looking up places to eat lunch on the internet one morning, he happened upon a local establishment called “Mel’s Cafe”.  I spun towards him and immediately delivered, in a deadpan falsetto drawl, “kiss my grits”. 

You could classify the look that I received as your classic combination of shock and utter disgust.  “What did you just say?”

“Mel’s Diner?  Flo?  Kiss my grits?  Come on…really?  Nothing?”  Oh right, he’s twenty.

My desperate attempts at disguising the self-carbon-dating of myself are equally as pathetic.  For example, I am a self-proclaimed music nut.  Music has always been my universal topic of discussion in bridging generations and genres of influence.  I pride myself on staying current with the modern rock and R&B scenes.  That is, until I start unconsciously slipping in references of a reminiscent yesteryear.  Words such as “album”, “B-side”, “45”, and “record store” inadvertently incorporate themselves into my geezer gab and inevitably rat out my four decades of existence.

I’m still leery about the broadcasting and outright marketing of the fact that “my beard is weird”, but I have decided to keep it around for a little longer.  I recently caught Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead on the radio reassuring that “oh well, a touch of grey kind of suits you anyway.”  At this point, I can’t say that I agree with that sentiment.  After all, deep down…I’m still only 26.  This billboard of gray just doesn’t project me at all. 

However, reality is oftentimes as subtle as a cinderblock to the toes.  Apparently, it’s time for me to accept the fact that my deeper shade of soul has officially walked the plank.  No longer do I channel that serious alt-rock mystique with the goatee.  Probably more the creepy old guy from that “very special episode” of a sitcom.    

Garcia does provide me with some solace at the end of that song though.  “I will get by.  I will survive.”  I still don’t accept it, but point taken.  The fact that I’m quoting the Dead, though, most likely means that I’m already well-beyond hope anyway.  If that’s the highway that I’m headed down though, I’m going out kicking and screaming…doing 30 mph in the fast lane.

And Good Will Toward Men...

I try to make it a habit of maintaining my composure around my children.  Language, demeanor, and common courtesies are areas that have been a constant work-in-progress since our first was born.  Our parents raised us a certain way and we are trying to do the same.  It’s not that I’m some sort of hothead or foul-mouthed hooligan or anything.  No comments from the peanut gallery, please.  It’s just that on those off-chances that I do lose my composure, it’s often quite colorful.

One of my mother-in-law’s favorite accounts revolves around the time that my father-in-law and I hung crown molding in our dining room.  I had cut the last piece of molding a full inch too short.  Already frustrated with the general expertise required in geometry, I snapped.  Calmly and without a word, I picked up the molding, walked out onto our back deck, and launched it like an Olympic javelin.   I estimated a good thirty yards through the air.  With my obvious shortfalls in tape measure usage, it may have well been closer to sixty.  I’m talking Nike sponsorship material here.  After cooling off, however, I walked into the backyard, wiped off the grass stains, and worked around the problem to complete the job.  Slightly insane?  A wee over-the-top?  You could make that argument.  However, spectacularly colorful. 

Most of the time, I incoherently mumble through my locker room repertoire and continue with the task at hand.  However, there’s always the “people factor”, coupled with my lack of patience for them, to consider as well.  Being that eternal cynic, I always expect people to behave like…well, people.  Society as a whole expects others to act as if they have some trace of common sense.  However, I happen to agree with the anonymous skeptic who once penned that “the problem with common sense is that most people are morons.”  More gently put, if you don’t expect too much, you’ll never be disappointed.

Normally, I find people-watching an amusing spectator sport.  There is that handful that really seems to draw my ire though.  Generally, they’re the ones that pose some sort of threat to what’s near-and-dear to me. 

Driving home late on Christmas Day, it snowed the entire way home.  The roads were clear until we reached our county line.  Literally, right at the county marker, the roads went completely untouched by snow removal equipment.  From that point forward, I couldn’t tell where the road ended and the ditches began.  With my wife, three kids, and a few dozen Christmas presents jammed into my car, I tried to take it slow and steady.  Anything over second gear seemed to result in a loss of traction.

“That handful” of people were also on the road that night.  The ones who, on snow-covered roads, decided to tailgate six inches from my bumper.  If there is one major pet peeve that I have, it’s tailgating.  Blame my years of navigating DC traffic as first-hand witness to thousands of mangled bumpers.  What’s the saying?  “You can take the boy out of the city, but not the city out of the boy.” 

Here I have my entire family in this car.  If I had to hit my brakes for any reason, this guy is basically in my backseat eating cheese sticks with my kids.  I flashed my hazards a few times.  Even resorted to physically waving him off.  Clueless.  I felt my face began to heat up as I rapidly approached that “slightly insane” stage.  For the purposes of safety, I pulled over in an effort to let him pass.

As he drove by me, I opened my window and stuck my head out in an effort to enhance our personal line of pleasantries.  Somehow, I managed to only shake a fist at him while keeping all five digits in the downward position.  However, I then followed it up with a booming “you’re an IDIOT” at the top of my lungs.  Yes.  That “boy-city” thing again.

After putting the window back up and carefully getting back on the road, a small voice appeared from the backseat.  It was my five year old daughter. 

“Daddy, it’s not nice to call somebody an idiot.”

Oops.  I have passengers.

Privately, I patted myself on the back.  The fact that only a closed fist and an “idiot” were outwardly expressed was really a testimonial to my overall progress.  Before children, I was liable to offend a busload of Marines and sprain a finger…or two.  Exemplifying the true decathlete of vulgarity.  However, she was right.  The next five minutes resulted in an extended conversation on how it wasn’t nice to treat other people that way.  How we have to control our tempers and be courteous to others (even if they are idiots).  It turned into an extremely beneficial moment for us, as parents, in teaching both tolerance and respect. 

Through these discussions, my blood pressure stabilized and body temperature normalized.  My family was safe and that’s all that really mattered.  At that moment, a truck blew by us in a no-passing lane, weaving and darting to get in front of me.  Unfortunately, my mouth is occasionally a good second or two faster than my brain.  This was one of those such instances.  “Now go ahead and wreck” immediately fell out of my sarcastic mumbler.

I physically cringed as that little voice returned from the backseat.  “Daddy, why do you hope he wrecks?”

Luckily my wife, with fifteen years experience in defusing the repercussions associated with my oftentimes irrepressible outer-voice, was fast enough to orchestrate an impromptu word scramble to smooth the situation.  The natives seemed satisfied.

As for me, I simply nodded intently.  Better to slouch down and keep my mouth shut at this point.  Not tempt kiddy decorum any further.  Somehow, I managed to keep my language in check.  Demeanor and common courtesy, on the other hand, were systemically launched by a colorful, albeit slightly insane, Olympic gold medalist.  Twice.

This time, I’m demanding the IOC and Guinness folks provide the official measurement.

The Inquisition

“It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”  “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

Just a couple snippets of the inner thoughts of a child.  Well, mine anyway.  I’m a living case study concerning all matters “parent-child psychology”, but I can vividly remember mumbling through a few of them myself as a child.  I still have the scars, dents, and fracture-related arthritis to remind me of the associated aftermaths.  However, it’s my charismatic children that now stand to serve a refresher crash course, specifically for my wife and I.

Recently, I went into the garage to grab some nails from my tool bench.  What I found, however, were a couple of nuts.  Sitting on the floor of the garage was my daughter.  Bicycle helmet on, looking down towards the ground, bracing herself.  My son, standing directly in front of her.  Foam-covered wiffleball bat raised completely over his head, ready to swing down.  I must have caught him at “T-minus-two” because I received a surprised, half-hearted smile and customary shoulder shrug after breaking his concentration.

I simply looked at him with my hands motioning to my daughter.  “Really?”

“What?  She has a helmet on.”

The “facepalm” was nearly involuntary.  Involuntary, due to the number of times in a week that I find myself performing it.

Frankly, he had a point.  They had at least taken a helmet into consideration.  If it were my brother and I as kids, we probably wouldn’t have thought that far ahead.  The plan would have been considerably more rudimentary and, let’s be honest, a wiffleball bat simply would not have achieved what he and I would have envisioned as a respectable rate of downward velocity.  I am fairly certain, though, that my son’s experimentation with physics, freak accidents involving bicycles and wiffleball bats, and the biological fundamentals of cranial flexibility would have quickly escalated until true blunt-force-trauma was achieved.  Better to have broken up this party in the research and development stages.

 “Is that really such a great idea?” 

It was your typical, rhetorical question that every parent feels compelled to ask in response to performances such as these.  Personally, I have to.  The cheap amusement that I get out of seeing his wheels spin, in a desperate attempt to formulate an acceptable explanation, is just too good to pass up. 

So starts the Parental Inquisition. A full fatherhood tribunal involving his specific actions and their potential consequences.  I presented my own lengthy dissertation as to why “bat” and “little sister” do not belong in the same sentence together.  However, the more I talked, the more I could see his eyes wandering further out of focus.  The wheels were spinning, but not necessarily on anything that I was spouting.  Most likely, he was mentally flowcharting his next initiative.  I heard accountability and responsibility coming out.  He heard Charlie Brown’s teacher coming in.  “Wa-wonk, wa-wonk, wonk”.

Unfortunately, much like my facepalm ritual, the Inquisition has quickly become an encore performance these days.  A recent example accompanied my son’s gravitational theories concerning the centripetal force required to successfully spin a hammock-full of four year olds, 360 degrees around in a circle.  Unfortunately, only enough force to achieve 180 degrees was reached that evening.  My daughter and friend found themselves with a faceful of mulch.  Back to the drawing board for Sir Isaac Newton... 

Yet another Inquisition was conducted several weeks later, following my son’s aspirations of a winner-take-all game of “chicken” down our driveway.  Son and daughter pedaling their big wheels full-speed towards each other, then veering left or right at the last moment to avoid sure carnage.  My daughter lost that bout too, by the way.  Amidst the mayhem that morning, I firmly believe that James Dean would have been proud of her unwavering moxie.  In hindsight, I think that I can also officially rule out any career for them in statistics, as they both failed miserably in determining their individual success rates in carnage avoidance.  Insurance adjusters perhaps?

Ultimately, it all seems to come back to the old “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” theory.  Improvised bike ramps that would have failed every building code known to man, backfiring potato cannons full of butane, and homemade rocket launchers involving aerial fireworks and my father’s pipe clamps were just a few personal debacles of note.  Most led to friends-turned-M*A*S*H* personnel in frantic episodes of dragging battered comrades back to their respective houses for bandaging and antiseptic.   Shouting wildly at each other along the way in a desperate attempt to get our stories straight for the mom. 

No one ever got seriously injured…not that anyone would admit to anyway.  It was pretty tough to mask the dozen stitches and accompanying skull staples for yours truly though.  From that point forward, heaving coffee cans full of carriage bolts at each other was unspokenly frowned upon amongst friends.

Deep down, you can’t say that it really gets any better with age either.  I’m willing to bet that over 50% of the weekend emergency room visits for 18-50 year old males start out with the phrase “wanna see what I can do” or “hey man, check this out”.  I have personally witnessed at least a dozen of these events.  Probably been a direct party to twice that.  That’s all that I’m willing to admit to on-the-record though, without an attorney present and a gratuitous sound-bite of Jack Palance’s “Believe it…or not”.

Even though it’s inescapable that my son will continue to navigate youth with his father’s genetic idiocy coursing wildly through his veins, I have at least highlighted the need for him to start leaving his sister out of his master plan.  Glass-half-full, I have been the beneficiary of sprint-related cardio workouts after overhearing “go ahead, try it” from the next room.  However, as his ideas grow more elaborate, I also see my odds of success significantly fall in the area of preemptive catastrophe interference.   

I take it back.  The bike helmet was a magnificent idea.

Fail. Rewind. Repeat.

In the days that pre-dated social networks, instant messaging, and texting, many of us only had email as the main source of communication between friends while at work.  Hard to believe for some of those kinder in years, but email was considerably easier than lugging around that ten pound military com unit commonly referred to as a “cell phone” back in those days. 

A regular “activity” for on-the-job, twenty-somethings like me back then, was the constant forwarding of email jokes.  It was our escape from the daily doldrums of office cubical incarceration.  One email, that I actually still keep near-and-dear, was entitled “Modern Philosophies of the Cynic”.  It was my battle-cry, my manifesto.  Bottled sarcasm.  As someone who has always done everything the hard way, it spoke to my inner realist.

“The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be pressed against it” and “The hardness of the butter is always proportional to the softness of the bread” were just a couple memorable quips from this masterpiece.  I keep this original list handily nearby, posted to one of my cabinets at work.  Torn and weathered from the dozens of job changes dating back to the mid-1990s, it’s magnificently printed via vintage dot matrix and still proudly echoes one of my favorites. 

“Success Always Occurs in Private.  Failure in Full View.”

I constantly find new ways to reinvent that credo.  And I often do so spectacularly.

Anybody who knows me knows that I’m not a master orator.  Tense public speaking situations for me are often met with wildly-exaggerated sarcasm and self-depreciative mockery.  Humor is my defense.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love talking and joking with a roomful of friends.  But a roomful of judgmental strangers?  Me…as the straight-laced professional with a serious demeanor?  Fuhget-about-it.  In truth, I do what I have to do to make a buck, but I unquestionably loathe every second of it. 

In response to making that buck and take on a greater role in my job, I was recently invited to take an eight-hour executive presentations course through work.  Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, now boarding the “A” train to Hell.  Destination: Dante’s Inner Circle with stops at Anxiety, Apprehension, and Public Humiliation.

This particular training covered a wide range of public-speaking scenarios in a corporate environment.  Speak on the spot, presenting with powerpoint, hostile Q&A sessions, and impromptu boardroom fist-pounding speeches.  These weren’t one-and-done sessions either.  Each scenario was done three times in succession.  The first round was a start-and-stop session with critique from the instructor.  The second was a complete delivery with a humiliating, overall performance hack-job from your fellow classmates.  The third and final was the excruciating review of the entire train wreck on videotape.

Yes…videotape.  The ultimate weapon of mental mass destruction.  The vehicle that makes it capable to pacify the most animated of grandstanders, as well as psychologically cement the innumerous possibilities of potential internet blackmail.  Just ask the “Star Wars Kid” how well it worked out for him when his supposed private video went viral worldwide.  Talk about your semester-long case study in psychiatry…and well, drapery products.

There it was.  Stammering voice, delivery, nervous ticks, and gawky appearance on full, 42-inch hi-def display.  If you ever possessed even the slightest trace of personal insecurity, this magnified it fifty times over.  Being the gangly, bald, babbling oaf who makes really bad jokes at really inopportune times, I now understand this.  Honestly, it was not unlike watching the Hindenburg disaster.  In fact, once or twice, I believe I inadvertently channeled Herbert Morrison’s horrified eyewitness account out loud. 

“Oh the Humanity!” 

At the end of the class, the instructor handed back our videotapes and asked us to revisit them on occasion to remind us on where we needed to improve.  Improve?  On utter calamity?  Besides, those images of are now permanently burned into my memory like a psychosomatic branding iron.  So much for that theory of your brain subconsciously hiding extreme trauma in order to protect itself.

Passing through Washington DC on my way home that evening, I contemplated shipping this videotape, via airmail, into the Potomac River below.  Two things kept me from doing so.  One, it was 20 degrees outside and the thought of rolling down my windows on the 14^th Street Bridge at 40 miles per hour was completely unfathomable.  Second, the “Star Wars Kid”.  Having some random jokester find and post this natural disaster to YouTube.  Twenty million witnesses to my personal fail-a-thon.

With this scenario firmly entrenched in my psyche, the remnants of that videotape now sit in a secure, undisclosed location.  Stamped thoroughly and repeatedly with my personal Seal of Approval, courtesy of a 22-ounce framing hammer.  Further durability exercises on said evidence will include stoning-by-cinderblock, pyre-burning, and a private exorcism performed with speaker magnets dipped in battery acid.

Honestly, I don’t know why these embarrassing debacles still affect me.  I was a Public Relations major in college and have taken dozens of these public speaking classes over the course of my academic and professional life.  You’d think by this point, I would be psychologically immune to the end product and looming mortification.  Being that eternal cynic though, I always seem to find that dark ray of comedic sunshine to help me get through it.  This time, appropriately, it was the very first quip on my faithful philosophies list.

“If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that proves you tried.”