Now you’re a man!

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Well, 51 years ago today Krell’s mom was squeezing him out in New Mexico; 6 years ago I was doing the same with the youngest spawn. Now that I have two guys with the same birthday, and one of them is technically still a child, there has to be a party like it or not.  There will be plastic guns involved, and more than a few swords. Maybe a lightsaber as well. Our house is full of plastic weapons of all shapes and sizes, but we don’t have anything stronger than a pellet gun to use should we need to defend ourselves.  But that doesn’t stop Ninja Jui from training hard to master the skills needed to vanquish the evil dead of the Zombpocalypse!

Three-year old Jui insists on zombie nutcrackers for Christmas.

When we met, David claimed he didn’t grow up with toys. “All I had was a stick with a spring…and a box of circuit boards, and some slot car parts.” The combination of poverty, neglect, and extreme intelligence could have been the incubator for the world’s worst supervillian. Indeed things could have been very bad for little David, who left to his own devices soon proved that idle hands are indeed the devil’s workshop.

When he was a preschooler, Little David found it amusing to play in an old truck sitting out in his father’s pasture. Having a box of matches at his disposal (both parents were multi-pack a day smokers) he lit them one by one, launching them out the windows of the truck in a graceful arc to the dry grass beneath. Predictably the pasture caught fire, but Little David escaped. Realizing his evil deeds, he promptly ran home and hid under his bed where he soon fell asleep. The fire was eventually controlled, but not before the truck tires melted.

As he grew older, little David found even more creative uses for matches.  Using two clothespins he managed to make a flare gun that could launch a lit match about 20 feet through the air. But flare guns, though interesting, had no stopping power. Like all kids he wanted real firepower. So Little David built a zip gun.

Even in a peaceful house the compulsion and delight found in weapons is evident as Jui fondles the broken air soft gun his brother bequeathed him.

Don’t try this at home

The zip gun was made by removing the spoke from a bicycle wheel. The adjustment part of the spoke was then unscrewed off,  flipped over, then screwed back on, leaving a hollow chamber. What to put in this chamber? How about the scrapings from a strike-anywhere match head?  Since every gun needs something to propel it, a small bit of lead (about the same as a fishing weight) was added. To fire, light a match and hold it under the spoke/matchhead assembly until it heats up enough to ignite the scrapings, then pray your hand isn’t blown off.

His (some would say criminally negligent) father watched, too impressed to speak, as Little David’s improvised “gun” propelled the shot with the strength of a 22 bullet right through a 2 x 4. In the true spirit of scientific inquiry, and reckless endangerment of a minor, the experiment was repeated with the same result.

At ten, our budding engineer had devised an ingenious device- basically a miniature taser. Little David built a circuit: two probes powered b y a 9-volt battery. Experience had taught him that sometimes the inventor did not necessarily have to be the test subject. So he recruited a hapless neighbor child to help him “test it”. This was accomplished by having said neighbor apply both probes to his tongue. ( Today with shows like Jackass being so popular, I’m sure he would have insisted on a more amusing place for the probe.)

Manly men who laugh in the face of death!

So upon hearing these childhood tales, I was more than a little bit leery of attempting to raise the spawn of his loins without some horrific mishap. There are quite a few similarities- such as the same birthday, the same birth order (both were last born), not to mention shared genes. David had a sister 6 years older than he, as does Jui.  Little David didn’t have parents who were exactly attentive. He was praised for his inventiveness and intellect though, which is something they did right.

None shall pass!

I quickly learned with my firstborn that no matter how you try to keep a boy from playing with, thinking about, or handling weapons they will always find a way. Primitive as a slingshot, subtle as a knife, enthusiastic as a katana, or aggressive as an AK-47, the little boy will find a way to lay hands on the real thing, or as close a facsimile as he can. Like any tool, the judicious use of weapons is something that must be practiced, learned, and familiar if the child is to be able to deal with what it takes to be a soldier, or to defend his home.

Grendel is not keen on sleeping near an opossum. Neither am I.

Grendel, our pit bull chasing guard cat, wanted to sleep inside these last few nights. Even a blizzard wouldn’t coax him in, so we figured something must be wrong. We found the source of his fear soon enough- a loathsome opossum which David caught brazenly drinking from the cat’s bowl. It then turned and hissed before strolling away like it owned the place. If Grendel was afraid to sleep outside with it roaming around, what kind of danger would it pose to the chickens and the rabbits? Normally I am all for the freedom of an animal to live here, but this was a “varmint” and even I conceded that it needed to be permanently evicted for the safety of all.

For once I was glad we had a working gun (although a borrowed one) with which to dispatch the enemy.

About Post Author

Carol Bell

Carol is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Her passion is journalism and it shows. Carol is our unpaid, but very efficient, administrative secretary.
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13 years ago

Just can’t resist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw

Theme song to Orgasmo.

Reply to  C.H. McDermott
13 years ago

Being in the top three of my favorite movies of all time, I ALMOST made that song part of the post…

13 years ago

“Little David” was really David as a child, and Jui is just Jui. Both are obsessed with weapons, but as we provide our child with all the plastic ninja swords and fake guns he can fit into his belt, he hasn’t (yet) expressed his gun-obsession by inventing real, working, potentially deadly facsimiles while still in gradeschool.

I hope to give Jui a creative outlet that does NOT involve him engineering something deadly.

13 years ago

It’s typical Opossum ‘medicine’ to honor the plan that works the best for you… so dispatch seems like a natural. LOL
Great oratory! I loved the storytelling.
It seems no so strange at all to me that Julian and his Dad have so much in common.
Enjoyed it MH!

Happy Birthday to the Williams Boy-o’s!

Jess
13 years ago

Hey I have those nutcrackers, but mine are in capes and have vampire teeth on them. My parents humored me with my vampire fetish and it continues to this day. I also have an old fashioned Victorian girl and boy choir couple that I had made up as child vamps too. People get a kick out of it, when I pull out my coven of vamps and my bloodied dolls at the holiday time.

Reply to  Jess
13 years ago

LOL! We have a set of Lovecraftian “Apocalypse ponies” and chibi aliens and such. I love the juxtaposition of the benign with the creepy.

Reply to  Mother Hen
13 years ago

Ha! I just have to say you two girls are scary! Love ya!
Fantastic read MH! You must write a book, it is all there in plain sight…you are a great author! And congrats to you for having two great men with the same birthday! I think that was your sinister plan all along!!
Feed ’em lots of Ice Cream today…that’s what we Libras like 🙂
Happy Birthday Guys!!
P.S. I know it was really David playing with matches that burned down Grandpa’s truck…I’m sure he always hated ridin’ in it and thought he could pin the blame on Jui!!

Reply to  Teeluck
13 years ago

Ya know, I just read a Teeluck comment and it always cheers me up!

Admin
13 years ago

You didn’t kill the possum did you???

Reply to  Professor Mike
13 years ago

With extreme prejudice.

Reply to  Krell
13 years ago

The alternative was having Jui whack it with his plastic ninja sword, but I had doubts it would have stood for it. If Grendel is afraid of it, it needs to go.

osori
13 years ago

I love this! Kind of puts me to shame, I had the same urges for experimentation but my personal apogee was burning ants with a magnifying glass, learned by observing a neighbor kid at age 6 and still in use at age 12. Well, actually with my kids too in my forties.

13 years ago

Well….in defense of my childhood behavior, nobody every lost a limb or finger.

And the truck wasn’t actually a clunker. It was my Dad’s truck and we had drove out to check on the garden. He left me in the truck while he walked over. He said that when he turned around, the truck was surrounded by flames.

I love that picture of Jui in his Ninja outfit!

SJ
13 years ago

Great story, great read.
It’s always a bad sign when a house cat cedes territory, -after all, my old cat wouldn’t budge from the sofa to make room for me.

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