Because I Care Enough About You to Want You to Do Well

This past week I was on Spring Break so I made the painfully long [1] pilgrimage up north to see my girlfriend and her family [2]. There we watched movies [3], answered thought-provoking questions, ate good food, were blown away at a couple soccer matches [4], and baked cakes for three birthdays [5]. We also helped her little brother with his state history project [6] but the event this post refers to occurred the night before we left to visit my parents [7].

We were sitting around quite a while after the birthday party discussing the usuals of politics and the economy, when I noticed her little brother [8] sneak down from the top floor and further descend the stairs to the basement den. At first I assumed that he had forgotten something as he had been playing down there earlier; however, when he tarried and I could faintly hear some sounds, I knew exactly what he was doing. Not wanting to break up the others' conversation, I walked down the stairs myself.

I found him sitting in his Jar Jar Binks inflatable chair playing his X-Box 360 [9]. After telling him a couple times to save and shut down, and being blatantly ignored, I turned the game off.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because you know it's time for bed. You have school and tests tomorrow. You need sleep."

"I can sleep right here in my Jar Jar chair."

"No, you need to go up to bed and get a good night's sleep. Besides, Jar Jar is creepy."

"You can't make me, I'm staying right here!"

At this point I reminded him of my alternate identity as the tickle monster, thus removing him from the chair. I then carried him to the foot of the steps and told him to go on up.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I care enough about you to want you to do well."

This stopped him for a second and then, "Well, you can't carry me up all of these stairs!"

"Wanna bet?"

At which point I carried him to the ground floor where, when he recognized he was caught, he begged to be released. I sat him down and accepted his poorly concealed hug [10] before he headed, begrudgingly, upstairs.

He got the message, much like one boy I knew way back when, who also liked to sneak down and play games at night, got the message [11].

[1] About five and a half hours but it felt longer since I was listening to Dawkins on audio book.

[2] Well worth the trip! She's the kind of girl that makes me understand my favorite Marvin Gaye song.

[3] Including one sharing the title of my favorite Bill Withers song, a blatant rip-off of Batman that allowed me to make some great '90s PSA references, and The Lincoln Lawyer, which I suggest waiting until it's out on DVD as it feels like it would be better on a home screen.

[4] No, the kids weren't that good. The wind was intense that day and left us with nice wind burns to go with our sun burns. I got to see kids kick soccer balls toward the other team's goal only to see the wind blow the ball right back over their heads. I also got to see a kid learn why you don't pee into the wind even if you were told to go by the fence that is facing the wind. Poor kid, but therapists have to make money somehow!

[5] Her mom, sister, and maternal grandfather all had birthdays that week. We celebrated them all together but we still had two cakes and one big bowl of Jell-O! I'm glad I came up with the idea of getting three candles representing the numbers of their combined ages as it made for less fire and less waxy cake.

[6] As a teacher I couldn't not help or, better put, I couldn't not criticize the meaningless organizational activity that was being passed off as a project while belittling the poorly written rubric that failed to include criteria mentioned on other randomly inserted sheets. This is why our state is doing better than their state. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[7] A six hour drive that involves passing through two major cities and their continual construction projects. She must like Marvin Gaye too.

[8] Who was supposed to be in bed as he had school and state testing the next day.

[9] I must confess that my girlfriend, her sister, and I went in together to get this for him for Christmas so that we could prank him, but that's a tale for another day.

[10] Because I'm not buying that the squeeze was merely for stabilizing his landing.

[11] Thanks, dad! I love you! I figure you'll facebook-stalk your way here someday!