Kid, Meet Darnedest Things

October 20, 2008
While shopping at Target with mommy in a food aisle, my son asked for some fruit rollups and SpongeBob fruit snacks. Mommy soberly responded that all of the items already in the cart were adding up and asked if he had any money to contribute. My son turned his pockets inside out, shrugged, and -- equally soberly -- declared, "See, I don't have any money. Because I'm only 4."

August 2008
My wife, 4-year-old son, and I went to visit a college buddy of mine, his wife, and their two sons, 7 and 10 years old. My friend's sons were playing a game in which they were launching HotWheels cars along the long axis of the family room coffee table, seeing how far the cars could go and whether they would land right side up. Right-side-up distance winners would proceed to the next round of competition. Very organized and about as sensible as other forms of automotive competition. About 8 to 10 feet away along a flat trajectory from the table launch point was a wall. Only a few cars had kept to a shallow arc and had hit the wall (most falling short onto the carpet), but just in case, my friend had put a barrier throw-pillow upright against the wall to protect its paint. My son, of course, wanted to play with the big kids.

All was well for 10 minutes until the older boys lost interest and moved onto some different enticement. My son turned to go with them, but then decided for one last launch. With this final launch, and without the continuing example of technique from the older boys, my son launched a shiny, metal HotWheels car on an ascending ballistic trajectory that put it well above the safety crash pillow. Put it on a dead-center collision course, in fact, with my friend's brand new Sony 52" BRAVIA XBR LCD HDTV.

I spent a number of years working in a computer lab and, I'm not ashamed to admit, had my hand in the willful destruction of computer parts, including 12"-15" notebook LCD panels. I had also read possibly apocryphal stories about LCD HDTVs meeting ill fates from Wii Remotes flying loose from their owners' hands during vigorous gaming. But it was my son who offered me an opportunity to witness such grandiose destruction firsthand on a large screen. Sure, there was that sensory-accelerated sequence during which my brain rapidly calculated probabilities for impact locations and effects and in which the word (more of a shout, really), "No!", began to form on my lips. But the actual frozen moment in which that seeming juggernaut of a HotWheels car impacted with the LCD HDTV and a great swath of the screen failed in a rainbow flash, well, it was marvelous. (At least in a boys will be boys blowing stuff up sort of way, of course.)

Thankfully, my home owners insurance was all paid up and covered the damages to my friend's HDTV and allowed him to get a replacement within a couple of weeks. And to assuage our guilt, my wife and I presented my friend's family with a gift of a TV Armor screen to prevent any further projectile encounters of the HDTV kind.

On the bright side, what an arm on that kid!