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.

Intruder alert!

I was heading into the garage, as I am sure you often do, to get some sour cream.
To that you are no doubt saying, “The garage? For sour cream? Well, that makes perfect sense.” And then you vow never to eat chip dip at my house.
Actually, I was getting sour cream out from my garage refrigerator, which is needed to house the overflow food that does not fit in my main refrigerator, whose sole job is to house 500 to 600 pounds of leftovers at a time, which cannot be moved until it is time to throw them out, only to remark to my wife, “Look at how much we throw out!?!?! This is nuts!!!” At that point, she reminds me that my contribution to leftover consumption was zero, and the kids roll their eyes and leave the room, lest the conversation degrade into one about how it’s not that hard to change a toilet paper roll. You know – the kind of things married couples argue about when they have run out of real things to argue about.
So anyway, I was in the garage when I heard my wife call my name. And she did not sound happy. In fact, she sounded terrified, as if a giant squid was reaching through the upstairs window and attacking her. (I have no experience with squid attacks, but I feel certain that should one attack my wife, she might sound that kind of panicky.)
I bolted upstairs and found my wife standing in the playroom, her hands pressing against a closet door. “IT’S TRYING TO GET OUT!!!” she said as I bounded in the room.
“The squid?” I asked.
She looked at me funny.
“What is trying to get out?”
“I don’t know. I was sitting at the computer, I heard the door open, and it banged at the door and tried to get out. It’s a squirrel. Or a mouse. Or a possum. I don’t know. It’s something coming at the door.”
Immediately, I sprung into supreme protector mode. I put my hand on the door. “Dinner is on the stove,” I said. “Go take care of that. I’ll take it from here.” I looked around for something heavy, knowing that the squirrel/possum/squid might be quite powerful.
Once the door was secure, I went into the garage and grabbed a pair of heavy work gloves and a flashlight. My plan was simple: I would swing the door open, shine the light inside the closet, stunning whatever was there. I would then grab it with my gloves and let it go back in the woods/sea.
When I got upstairs, I donned my gloves. I readied the flashlight. I cued up the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” in my head to make me feel like an action hero.
One.
Two.
Three.
And with a deep breath, I flung the door open, crouched down with the flashlight and scanned for my nemesis. And I scanned. And I scanned. And I scanned. And I kicked a box to make it show itself. And I scanned. And I pushed another box. And I caught a suitcase that almost fell on me.
For a good minute I probed the closet, trying to find the offending creature. No sounds. No signs of life. Nothing.
I called down to my wife. “Are you sure you heard something?”
She was very sure. She stood at the bottom of the stairs assuring me how sure she was. While at the stairs, she noticed that I had left the door to the garage open. She was also sure that I could close a door. She gave the door a swift shove.
At that point, the closet door that was I standing next to also slammed shut. A metal container hanging on the doorknob rattled on the handle. In fact, it rattled in a way quite similar to, say, a possum scratching the door.
I came downstairs to test my theory. I began opening and closing the door quickly. Each time, I could hear the upstairs closet door open and close, the metal thingie rattling all the way. This told me one of two things: The possum/squid was an excellent choreographer, or the opening and closing was creating some kind of air current that was making it appear that something was trying to bust its way out of the closet.
When I explained my theory to my wife, she seemed a little embarrassed, even if not totally sold on my theory. I told her that it did, indeed, sound like something was trying to get out of the room, and that we at least had good experience, having done a dry run. At the very least, we are prepared. Bring on the squid.