Sunday, April 15, 2012

Tangled and Tied


You know those people who can take a piece of kite string and fashion a knot capable of suspending a grand piano in midair? Then they further insult you by saying, “Yeah, that’s a mid-shipman’s half hitch slip noose with a breaking point of seven tons.”

Having never been in Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Little League, or wherever people learn these critical life skills, I can barely keep my own shoes tied. So I was thrilled when my five-year-old son recently learned to tie knots.

This has opened up some exciting new possibilities for him. Just the other day, for example, I pulled a pair of boots from my closet, only to find that it was tied to five other pairs of boots. Why do I have six pairs of boots, you ask? Shut up. That’s not the point.

Being able to tie knots, my son can now be expected to perform simple tasks like tying his own shoes and changing the oil. So far, though, he has yet to use his new power for good. Yesterday, while I thought he was playing quietly in his room, (No child, by the way, is ever just playing quietly in his room; it has taken me five years and three children to learn this) he removed all the laces from his shoes and roped every one of his dinosaur toys together into some kind of prehistoric chain gang.

This led to a daddy rendition of that “With great power comes great responsibility” speech from Spiderman, which I completely botched, because I could only think of the beer ad: “With great beer comes great responsibility.” My Father of the Year application will have to be postponed again. In the meantime, my son apparently needs a more constructive hobby. Maybe I’ll have him join Boy Scouts.