It was another fun-filled morning
percolating with the daily trade-offs of verbal barbs and sparrings between
father and son before heading out the door for the school day. My son, the epitome of stubbornness and self-proclaimed,
all-worldly adolescent enlightenment, and me, the obvious irrational voice of clueless
parental reasoning. Even at eleven, the
boy clearly knows everything and I’m just an overly-cautious fossil. My diatribe evidently mere background noise for
an otherwise quiet morning.
Barking from our front porch, I
hear a rebellious voice answering my growls from his bus stop within the darkened,
frozen stillness of the arctic tundra.
“I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s not even that cold out!”
My typical over-the-top, glass-half-empty
response soon followed. “What…are you
kidding me? It’s five degrees out
here! People die in this kind of
weather! You better pray the bus doesn’t
break down!”
Our neighbors are obviously
well-entertained on school mornings…
Try as I may, the seasoned words of
wisdom tumbling out of my cryogenically frozen face were falling on deaf, likely
frost-bitten, ears. For once, however, I
wasn’t exaggerating. It really was five
degrees outside. Beyond stupid cold. Even the dog, who usually follows me onto the
porch as an early morning farewell ritual to the kids, had bailed because of
the biting temperature outside. Through the
frosted front door, she stared at me blankly like a box of freezer-burned microwave
lasagna in the frozen food section. “Better
you than me, pal.”
In addition to our parental
capacities being judged by his bus driver, his teachers, and nearly every
commuter driving down our street that morning, I was also anticipating an obligatory
visit from Social Services as to why we would send our son to school in five degree
weather without a jacket. Word of lax parenting
and social deviances typically travels quickly within our neighborhood’s gossipy
sewing circles, so we would likely be the quilting club’s lead story for the
foreseeable future.
Really, the answer was quite simple
though. It had gotten beyond the comical
debate as to whether or not it was cool for a middle-schooler to wear a jacket. I remember those debates rather vividly, much
to my parents’ dismay. This discussion
wasn’t whether or not he wanted to wear one though. It was more whether or not he could actually find
one.
The boy had lost…now count them
with me…three jackets this season alone and it was just January. My days of donating to the warmth and toastiness
of the school’s or the swim team’s practice facility “Lost and Found” box had
reached their max...much like the balance on our Kohl’s card.
In true fascist junta format, it
had been publicly decreed rather loudly in the kitchen just one week prior. “You will either find them, buy one for
yourself on your dime, or you will freeze.
Your choice, buddy.”
Siberian tough love, Inuit
gangsta-style.
Hey, the boy had some leftover money
from Christmas. He could easily buy that
coat or something resembling one. At
this point, just teaching the boy some responsibility was paramount. It’s not like I’m asking him to head into the
barren Arctic wasteland and harpoon a seal in order to make one. He will finally put two-and-two together in
that snowstorm and realize that it’s the jacket that keeps him warm…not the new
XBox 360 game. That responsibility gene
should kick in any day now, right? Any. Day.
Now…
After the bus had departed, I
stomped back into the house for much-needed warmth. “That boy can be so ignorant sometimes! It’s five degrees out there and he’s arguing
whether or not it’s cold outside!”
That’s when I heard a giggle from
my wife. I knew instantly where this topic
was headed. Diverted, hijacked, commandeered, rail-roaded.
“OK Hulk.”
I winced. I must be slipping in my old age. How did I not see that one coming from a mile
away? My own adolescent “responsibility”
neatly decorated and mashed back into my clueless, frozen pie hole.
“No. That was different. It was like forty-five degrees out that
night. Not five! It’s not even remotely the same thing!”
Although I wouldn’t admit defeat out
loud and accept a public turning-of-the-tables during one of my soapbox rants,
she was dead-on. The boy out there that
morning was me thirty-something years earlier.
It was October. I was probably seven or eight at the
time. “The Incredible Hulk” was one of
my favorite TV shows of the late 1970s.
The one with Bill Bixby as “Dr. David Banner” and Lou Ferrigno as the
huge, imposing green “Hulk” creature. I
never missed an episode. When the idea had
hit me several weeks earlier, I made sure to study the hair, the make-up, the mannerisms,
and most importantly, the grimace and muscle-flexing. After a serious session of admiring myself
flexing in front of the full body mirror, I was convinced. I could pull this off. I was going to be the Hulk for Halloween and
I knew exactly how I was going to do it.
Let’s just conveniently forget,
for a moment, that I was 60 pound skinny kid with the muscle tone of a dryer
sheet. Ribs fully visible, spindly arms
and legs, the whole pathetic illustration of everything un-Hulkly. I would go so far as to say more Invisible
Man than Incredible Hulk. Yes. Sometimes, what we see in our head, is not
necessarily what materializes in front of others. Hell, I still have that problem…
 |
| The Incredible Hulk |
As I assembled my costume (or
lack thereof) though, I was dealt a harsh blow of reality to my envisioned get-up. Because it was late October in northern
Virginia, my mom had bought me a green sweatshirt to wear out for my trick-or-treating
activities.
Wait…I don’t get it. A sweatshirt?
Why on Earth would I want to wear a sweatshirt over my “costume”? No one would know who I was supposed to be
and I would look like some random, green-faced moron in a sweatshirt wearing an
awful, black wig.
“Hulk no wear sweatshirt! No one know who Hulk is. Hulk mad!”
The topic was not open for debate
though. I was told that there was no way
I was going out in ripped shorts, no shirt, and no shoes in October. Either I wore her idea of a Hulk costume…or
“Hulk no go trick-or-treat”. Curses! Diverted, hijacked, commandeered,
rail-roaded.
 |
| The slightly less than Mediocre Hulk |
“I don’t understand what the big
deal is. It’s not even that cold out!”
Oof. There it was.
Who says genetics has no sense of humor?
It was nearly the exact same punchline served up several decades and one
generation later. All the result of stupid
parental responsibility. This time, I
was supposedly the responsible one and my son was irrational one. How and when did that happen???
All the same, I was crushed. However, as expected, I chose the lesser of
two evils. I wore that ridiculous sweatshirt
in order to get a pillow case full of candy.
Unable to accept defeat publicly though, I still maintain to this day that
it wasn’t the sweatshirt that kept me warm that night. It was anger and humiliation. I’m sensing a theme here. Hold a grudge much?
Adding insult-to-injury was the
fact that nobody, and I mean zero people, knew who I was supposed to be that
night. “Are you an elf?” “Oh, a scary zombie!” “Look, I think he’s an angry alien!” Oh, I was angry alright. In fact, Hulk wanted to pound these puny
humans and their oblivious observations.
Finally though, there was the ultimate insult. A slur unmatched by all of the other brain-dead
simpletons that apparently resided on my street. “Are you that cute little ‘Sprout’ character from
those ‘Green Giant’ commercials?”
 |
| Blasphemy |
“Look lady, I’m the Incredible Hulk. Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. Now pony up the goods before I smash you.”
In the end though, we wound up
buying the boy a new jacket. Some tough
love gangsta, huh? Even as an adult, I
wind up having to cave to that sense of parental responsibility. On a positive note, he’s been able to retain this
one for a solid month now. Excuse me
while I consult Guinness on the matter… However,
if he loses this one, I believe that I have found a way to both motivate the
boy to find it quickly and heal old Halloween scarrings of years past at the same
time. Just don’t call the police when
you see a green, half-naked grown man sprinting around his bus stop on a cold
winter’s morning.
