Wheeling it

It was a disaster of epic proportions. I heard my wife call over to me from across the street. I turned and saw my son face down in the grass. His bike was overturned. He was less than happy.
Now, you may think I am setting the stage from some brutal bike crash, but I assure you that is not the case.
My son is the master of the slow fall, where the bike starts to lean and he just gradually walks it over on its side. So I was not quite sure why he was lying down. And pounding the grass.
Hmm, I thought. And continued playing basketball.
“MICHAEL!” said my wife, speaking in all caps to show how important my attention to the matter was. I stopped in the middle of an incredibly important game of horse, one in which I had already dispatched two neighbors and was working on a third. “I’m kinda busy here ...” I said, letting her know just how exasperated I was to be interrupted when I had someone at h-o-r-s.
“His bike is broken,” my wife said, somehow thinking I was suddenly a bicycle repairman.
“Horse,” I said, pointing at the basketball goal. She said nothing. And that spoke volumes that I best high tail it over to the broken bike.
When I got there, I saw that the training wheel on the right side had snapped off, splitting the plastic. I looked at it, and said, “Yeah, it’s broken.” I figured I could get back to playing horse.
My wife asked what I was going to do. I told her that I could not fix it, and we would simply have to buy a replacement. Parker found this answer unsatisfactory.
“But you can fix it, Daddy!”
It is really nice to know that my son still believes I can fix anything. Even shattered plastic.
So we walked the bike back to the driveway. I thought about the various ways I could try and reattach the wheel – nails, duct tape, super glue, chewing gum ... Hmmm. No viable options. I told Parker we might have to go to the store to get a new wheel. “But I want to ride now!”
“Well,” I told him, “then you’ll have to ride on two wheels.” Call that bluff, tough guy.
“OK. Take off the training wheels.”
Gulp.
So in short time I had the training wheels off. I told him we would try to go a short distance in the yard, so that when he fell it wouldn’t hurt. I put him on the bike and steadied him. We started moving slowly, and I told him he needed to keep steady, to keep the pedals moving, to look forward.
Apparently he didn’t want to hear anymore direction because he simply pedaled away from me.
Of course, I ran behind him, waiting for him to fall. And I ran. And I ran. And I ran. And he kept going.
He rode over toward a crowd of neighbors nearby. They all braced to catch him.
He veered toward a yard, slammed on the brakes and dismounted.
“There,” I said. “I fixed the training wheel problem.” Remember the scene in “American Beauty” when Lester Burnham gets his Firebird? And he shoots the fist up and says, “I rule!”? Yeah, that was me.
I turned to walk off when a neighbor said, “Uh, you can’t just give him one push and call it done!”
Oh, yeah? I set him on the bike again. And off he went. “Oh, apparently I can.” Fist.
So he is now up and running on two wheels, and I have to say it was the easiest transition in the history of mankind. It would not have been that easy had he suddenly sprouted wheels. Glad it was that easy. And glad he still thinks I can fix ANYTHING.