The Madness of Being

Predominately in my blogs I will speak my mind about world events and the collective political scene. As a scientist I look for refuge in my own family microcosm. I feel it necessary as the resident scientist to maintain order and remind my family from time to time when insanity is creeping up on them. Of late I am confronted with my own . . . Well . . . strangeness.

To my eldest son Elvis, who is dating and in denial about dating at the same time, I merely remind him to be sure not to marry a sociopath. I did this once, to forever prove to the world that it is a bad idea! “Sociopaths are everywhere,” I tell him. They are like the mold spores that infect bread after the expiration date, you think you are eating a tuna sandwich and BAM! There’s this new weird thing going on between your taste buds and your gag reflex. And oh yes, be pure and wholesome at all times, I know its hard, but remember, your hormones are the constant adversary of the soul.

Freddy, caught precariously between childhood and a tank-like body like the HULK, understands only that he must be cool. He knows all the "rules," most of which I do not. Among the strangest rules? I note. Don’t walk with me at the mall and don’t make me wear my coat to school. The scientist says, “but son it’s only 15 degrees this morning. I was nearly buried alive last winter during that blizzard last year. Coats are good! Cold . . . BAD! Water, of which composes 75% of your body , freezes at a mere 32 degrees.” As of this date he is still alive.

The scientist does not understand what cool means. That it is not cool at 15 degrees? How cool is cool? Oh I get it! . . . this is a lingo, slang, semantic, teen thing right? In only five more years, I remind myself, his brains frontal lobe will be fully developed.

Then there is Hans. Hans is six years old. When I was five, I was already a scientist. One of my first and most persistent exploits into empirical data, was to take one of my mothers bobby pins and try to race the electrons in the wall outlets around the house. I was sure I could beat them at least once. I practiced and practiced for hours, with my rapid in and out motion. I guessed I had honed the motion down to about as fast as I could blink, which was faster than dynamite on the Lone Ranger. It never worked. There were no slow electrons anywhere in the house. My hand and arm would ache terribly for hours. Science . . . Must . . . Persevere!

Did I mention genes? My genes are terrifying me these days. In the argument center of my brain, the dialog goes something like this:

“Look! Hans is only half you . . . In fact he is less than half you because the woman carries the mitochondrial DNA“. Yes”, says my other self, “but you are squeezing a decimal here, the glass looks half full to me“. “Nonsense!” says the scientist, “he hasn’t jumped off the roof with an umbrella or been scene pushing metallic objects into the wall outlets“. “Yes” says the other part of the brain, “but here is what he asked me yesterday”:

“Dad, can my eyes fall out?”

The question causes a paroxysm somewhere deep in my medulla. Somewhere behind my first seven year old encounter with Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man and my first look at the nuclear test video from the Bikini Atoll, I am pulling myself together to answer this mad mad child. “NO” . . . “and you must never try doing that!”

This afternoon, I notice the after effects of my six year old's early morning explorations before mom and I awoke. It snowed again. Something transfixes my six year old about snow. Feburary at 6,250 feet in the Utah mountains is pretty snowy. I note, while contemplating a strategy to get the hot tub, which is buried in snow, that oblong orange objects litter . . . No . . . decorate the snow which is chest deep in the back yard. “Carrots from last nights dinner”, the thought seeps dimly into my scientist mind . . .

I remember telling him, “Good boy Hans! You ate all your carrots!” That little sneak.

Which half of his DNA did that? Robin and I are still contemplating this.