Friday, December 12, 2003 Our Favorite Space Show
When the mate and I were exiled in Delaware, I was barely conscious for many of my waking hours in the home. My (doomed) thesis, my job at the (awful) school paper and the interminable commute through farm country, took their toll. When I came home at night, I usually ended up watching TV.
Our sweet landlord's special needs child didn't really get the fine line between zombified total exhaustion and murderous rage. He also didn't get why the mate and I wouldn't let him win in Nintendo. Why it was not OK to howl and screech and drum his heels violently on the bed was also outside of his realm of understanding.
The mate and I adopted a policy of banishing him from our room by early evening. Then I would stare, mouth agape at the television. Usually, it was some permutation of Star Trek. The local stations seemed to play it all times.
The little boy would sulk for a while outside the door, until he became distracted. Soon enough, he would be back downstairs, freezing household items in blocks of ice, or in the bathroom, filling the sink with hair gel.
After many months, he began to equate getting kicked out of the room with the Star Trek Universe.
"Are you watching your favorite space show?" he would ask mournfully. When we agreed, he would sigh theatrically and leave without further fussing.
When he gets older, he will remember getting dissed for the Space Show.
That little boy will grow up to blow up space.
posted by Frenz | 12/12/2003 10:15:00 PM
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