Damaged Goods. My iPad 2 is Hurt. Bad.

Not My Actual iPad 2. In fact, mine still works. This is how my heart looked after I found out.

This Thanksgiving my stepson stepped on my iPad. I’m making my peace with that.
If you look closely at my screen, you can see the crack that stretches from one side of the screen to the other. Smaller cracks radiate out from what I assume was ground zero; the place where his heal came down on it. It still works, but it does so in a wounded, ugly fashion.

In my mind the crack made a slight sound. The sound that ice makes moments before you fall into the cold.  But I don’t know.
I can’t ask him. He doesn’t remember doing it. He hasn’t exactly pled not guilty.  More like no contest.  He’d been playing with it, and once he exhausted it with temple runs and subway surfs he plugged it in. He then placed it on the living floor of my parent’s busy house and went on with his business. Why would he put it on a hardwood floor? Because he’s nine.
What is nine year old boy business? I don’t know.  Nobody knows; not even them. This morning he accidentally took our TV remote to school.  How? Easy.  He didn’t remember to put it down.

All he had to do was position his hand above any of our living room furniture and then release the tension in his hand muscles.  Gravity would have taken care of everything else. But nine year old boys and lunatics forget to put things down; an act so easy that people routinely accomplish it in their sleep. 

So he put the iPad on the floor and walked around. Knocked into things and nibbled on things and talked and didn’t talk. Nine year old boy stuff. Dances were danced and kicks were launched into the air, inappropriately close to very old, very fragile things.

At one point he knocked everything on the love seat onto the floor. Then he walked away. Then he was sent back to the scene of that smaller crime and along the way he stepped on my iPad.  I think.  I picked it up a short time later to find showtimes for Twelve Years a Slave. That’s when my wife saw the crack.
Let me tell you something about the love of my life. She is fiercely intelligent and a gifted craftsman with a radiant sense of urban bohemian style. In a lot of ways, she is super-human. So, you could say that her eyes are her kryptonite. The girl can’t see too well. But she saw the crack.

Glasses are her thing. She has about a dozen pairs, all different, all absolutely unique. Not long ago one of her pairs was missing. The dog had taken then. It gnawed on her designer frames and marred the lenses with ugly scratches.  And I laughed.

I didn’t know they were damaged when I laughed.  You had to get right up on the frames to see the scratches.  All I knew was that our dog had stolen her spectacles,  which is kind of funny. Not “ha ha” funny. More like, “I can’t fucking believe you’re laughing!” funny.

At one point she told me that I wouldn’t be laughing if he has bitten my iPad… Do you see where I’m going? If you’ve ever watched Snapped!, then you know what I’m suggesting. For those of you who don’t know, Snapped! is a TV documentary series that highlights a different woman every week who kills either her lover or a lover’s lover. Before I met my wife, I had never heard of it. After I met her, I became intimately acquainted with it.

I’m convinced that it’s sole purpose is to remind men that women can be just as crazy as they are. In that it is very successful.

Whisper these words to yourself. My wife made her son step on my iPad. A revenge stepping for when the dog chewed on her glasses. She’s coming home soon, and I don’t want any trouble… but I think she did it. I laughed at her, and she Snapped!.

If she did, it was the perfect crime. After all, nine year olds are great patsies. They do so much so often that they have pretty much lost the ability to deny their guilt. Their musty, cluttered brains have repaved the “I didn’t do it” section to make room for Skylanders and empty potato chip bags.

Of course I’m only joking. (I’m Not!). I love her dearly, but even though she calls my iPad, “Chad’s Girlfriend”, I’m sure she would never do something like that. But if you’ve seen Snapped!, you know what happens to the girlfriend. It never ends well for them.

 

American Ninja Warrior and the Question that Stopped the World

My step son and I sat on the couch in our living room. The dog was beneath us, curled up in the shadow of my two legs. American Ninja Warrior was on.

This is our thing. You see, it’s hard to have a whole lot in common with a nine year old boy. He likes Skylanders and Minecraft. I don’t. He dances. All of the time. I don’t dance. His energy level hovers somewhere near 10. I wake up at four, and sometimes I make it to seven, but not without repercussions, including but not limited to narcolepsy and aches and pains the following morning.

We play spar; he pits his capoeira against my hsing yi kung fu. That lasts twenty minutes. After that I want to find the nearest comfy chair. This, just as he is about to launch himself into orbit, throwing butterfly kicks in our living and threatening every lamp, mask and piece of electronics.

American Ninja Warrior is our compromise. It’s like being active, without all of that sweating and huffing and puffing. We can sit and watch other people doing cool stuff without risks of bruises or broken dishes. My wife and his older sister retire quietly to another room where they watch something with sequins and sparkles on it, like Dance Moms or Hollywood Ex’s. Me and him watch man stuff with a manly dog laying beneath our feet.

Last week he asked me if I could compete on Ninja Warrior. He said those words without irony or sarcasm. I told him no. I didn’t want to, but I did.

Technically I could compete. I could send them a video, cross my fingers and wait for the invitation. They may even call me, if they have a sense of humor. The question is, how do I push my 210 pound frame through all of those obstacles. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a video. And here is a submission video, from a Ninja Warrior hopeful. What do they all have in common? They are all fit. Very fit. Unlike Wipeout, American Ninja Warrior does not suffer flabby foolishness lightly.

My stepson doesn’t know what I’m thinking when we watch it. Most of my inner dialogue includes the words, “That’s gonna hurt!” I wince and bite my lip. It doesn’t matter if they fall into the water or make it up the salmon ladder, the aches and pains stay on my mind. I think of the tweaked backs and the sprained ankles. At nine, when you hurt yourself, you heal. At 42, when you hurt your body, your body remembers.

He’s thinking that he could do it. He’s kind of jacked for a kid. By the time he hits his twenties he’s going to have a super hero physique. Like his dad. The man is built like henchman number one in every action movie. His biceps are thick. His forearms are bigger than my ankles. His waist, however, is less than mine by more than a few digits. He could do it too.

Which makes me think that I have to do something. Nine year olds adore their fathers and step fathers. All you need is a show and some slap fighting to forge lifelong memories. But one day he’ll be 15 and I will be corny. It’s why I began practicing capoeira. And while I don’t regret stopping, but I do regret not finding something else that we could do together. Because in a few years, that may be the only thing we can talk about.

What do you guys think about father and son bouldering?

If you want to read about my past attempts at fitness, you know what to do. Click here to find out about Rule Number one of the zombie apocalypse, otherwise known as the reason T Dog would have outlived me.

Click here to read about the kettlebell, which is about the only exercise I’ve done, besides kung fu, since capoeira ended.