The Marionette

 

I was 11 years old when I learned that “authority” wasn’t synonymous with fair, or right, or reasonable.

During the first half of sixth grade, at Hyde Park Elementary School back in 1981, I was one of a select group of students who were permitted to leave Mrs. Hewitt’s English/Spelling/Grammar class twice a week to work on a special project. Organized and supervised by a couple of moms, we students were going to make marionette puppets and have several performances of The Grimm Brothers fairy tale, The Elves and the Shoemaker.

Each of us was assigned a character which we would be responsible for putting together and creating the costume. I was chosen to be one of the elves. Since we were only meeting for about 45 minutes twice a week, the construction of the puppets wasn’t too terribly in-depth. Everyone used the same pattern for the marionettes. We cut the head, each arm, each leg, and the torso from two pieces of cream-colored cloth that we would then sew together.

I remember sitting at sewing machine for the first time, excited that I was going to get to use it. At home my mom had a Singer sewing machine that I was fascinated with. I would often go into the room where she had it set up and marvel at the machine that had the power to repair the shirts I had torn climbing over fences or to hem the hand-me-down pants I had that were too long. My mom made sure that the Singer was never threaded because she knew I liked to sit at the table, turn it on and step on the pedal to be able to hear the staccato sound of the needle quickly move up and down. But I was going to get to actually use this one.

One of the moms sat there with me and showed me how to control the speed. She then threaded the machine and had me watch her as she ran one of the arms through, leaving the top of the arm unstitched so that we could later stuff it with cotton. I sat down at the machine and, with her closely supervising, I sewed the other arm together. It wasn’t as good as hers. Sometimes my stitches were too far inside, and I had gone completely off the cloth a couple of times down around the fingertips, but I got the job done. The legs went much more smoothly, as did the head. The torso was the easiest of all, as it was more or less a square.

We dropped ½ ounce fishing sinkers into each arm and leg to give the hands and feet some weight. Then we stuffed all the parts with cotton. To simulate the joints, we stitched across the arms/legs where the elbows/knees would be. And although there was no need for a movable wrist or ankle, we stitched there as well to keep the sinker in the hands and feet. By now, I was an “old pro” with the sewing machine, and it was no problem whatsoever to stitch the legs, arms and head onto the torso. The result was clearly a human figure, about a foot tall, that could very easily have been used as a voodoo doll had we been so inclined.

The faces of our marionettes were to be drawn on using colored pens. I have never been artistically inclined and, although I was going for something suitably “elfish,” I ended up with something like “angry Pacific Islander.” My costume design didn’t fare so well, either. While the other marionette characters had outfits made from a variety of fabrics and made use of assorted colors and had accessories like belts, suspenders and hats, I had cut the patterns for both my elf’s shirt and pants from a piece of brown corduroy. Once those articles of clothing were sewn and my marionette was dressed, I attempted to “elf it up” by trimming the hem of the shirt with pinking shears to give it that jagged, saw-toothed look, but the effect was lost since the shirt and pants were the same material. I was well aware that my marionette wasn’t as presentable as the others, and I was silently embarrassed about that. I was positive that I was going to be told that my marionette wasn’t good enough and that I couldn’t participate in the show. But no one said that. They knew I did my best. And while I knew I did my best, it was obvious that my best wasn’t as good as the others. I was happy that I would be hidden from the audience’s view as I manipulated my marionette’s actions from behind the stage.

Learning to control the marionette elf was a blast, and I picked up on it pretty quickly. Two control bars were used: My right hand held the bar with the strings attached to the head and each hand, while my left hand held the bar with strings attached to the feet. During our practices, I would spend a lot of time on making my elf walk. I focused on this because I didn’t want him to seem like he was floating or hopping his way across stage. His arms and hands were a different story, though. Those were controlled by the bar in my left hand. I didn’t have the dexterity to control either of his hands to make it look like he was hammering or tapping on something. The best I could do was to alternately raise and lower each arm, which made my elf look like he was slowly beating a phantom drum.

 

I’m unable to recall any of the actual performances of our little play; probably because we were behind the stage and didn’t get to feel a “connection” with the audience that a live actor might experience. However, I do recall our curtain calls after each of the performances. We had to line up in front of the stage with our marionettes and make them bow. Each time, I remember thinking, “Everyone’s going to know that it was me that had the crummy looking marionette,” and I hoped that my embarrassment wasn’t as evident as I felt it to be. But as before, no one said anything about it. No one pointed or snickered.

After our final performance, just before Christmas break, we were able to take our marionettes home. I didn’t really want third-rate elf, but I was proud of the doll I had made so the very first thing I did was cut off the strings and those brown clothes. I took the former marionette up to my room and set it on the edge of the TV stand with his back leaning against the TV. Every now and again, when I was especially bored, I’d pull him off the TV stand and make him act out some scene from a movie or one concocted from my own imagination. Although he couldn’t stand on his own or hold a pose, his arms had a tremendous range of motion, and I could move them in ways that my Star Wars or G.I. Joe action figures were incapable of duplicating. It was fun making him climb up my closet door like Spider-Man or perform the iconic finger-point-dance along with John Travolta when ABC aired Saturday Night Fever.

Eventually, things like that became boring and so I began making him do other, more daring things. He became an acrobat. I’d fling him upward, causing him to do cartwheels in the air. Each time I’d try to out-do the last. Three cartwheels? Let’s go for four. What about six? There were only so many I could make him do inside the house. I needed to take him outside to be able to do more, but it was winter and I didn’t want to ruin him by playing with him where he could get wet. Another change of careers was in order. He became a stuntman, and I named him Colt Seavers, after Lee Majors’ character on the new TV Show, The Fall Guy.

The first stunt was a fall. I sat on the landing at the top of the stairs and pretended to be the director.

“All right, Colt. You’re just going to jump off the landing and we’ll see how things go, OK? Annnd…….ACTION!”

I gave Colt Seavers a little toss so that the first step he hit on the way down would be about the third from the top. There were plenty of takes for this particular stunt because he would never fall and tumble the same way twice. Sometimes, he hit the steps exactly right and would accelerate toward the bottom with reckless abandon until he came to a sudden stop on the tiled floor below. Other times he would hit the wall or banister on the way down which often slowed him enough that he came to rest draped over the edge of a step looking like every bone in his body was broken, his legs on the step above and face on the one below with his arms bent at awkward angles. Falling down stairs was all well and good, but there were other stunts that needed to be done as well.

I would precariously sit him on the top of the door to my room and shoot him with my dart gun. And not one of those “safe” dart guns like they have now, where the small dart is made of rubber and is propelled by air. Colt Seavers was regularly shot with a standard, plastic, spring-loaded dart gun pistol with the rubber suction cup removed from the dart. Sometimes my aim would be off, and I’d hit his foot which made him fall forward. It wasn’t that spectacular, until I moved a folding chair in front of the door so he would hit it on his way down, which caused a sudden change the direction of his tumble. What I enjoyed the most though, was shooting the dart at the upper portion of his body. One moment he’d be sitting on the door, and the next moment all I saw was feet disappearing over the top. Colt Seavers was a great toy, made even greater by the fact that I had made him.

Spring arrived and I was finally able to take Colt Seavers outside. I no longer harbored any thoughts about acrobatics and how many cartwheels could be done. It was all about being a stuntman. I’d climb trees, drop him out of them and smile as I watched him Plinko his way down. He was put into the Wiffle-Ball Automatic Pitcher and catapulted across the yard. His hands and feet were duct-taped to the tetherball, and he was sent into an ever declining, ever accelerating spiral until he was pinched between the ball and the pole.

Then, one day, I was in the front yard, and I figured I’d see just how many air cartwheels I could make him do. I was so concerned about the power I would need to get him high into the air and how I needed to flick my wrist to get the maximum number of cartwheels that I didn’t even think about where he was going to end up. I let him fly. Up, up, up he went, end over end. He reached the apex and started his descent, and I could tell what was going to happen. WHUMP, he landed on my porch roof. I stood there in my front yard and stared up at the roof. Colt Seavers’ hand was the only part of him that was visible.

This was an easy decision. The window in my room looked directly out onto the porch roof. All I had to do was lift the screen, walk on out, pick him up and climb back in. It wouldn’t take but 10 seconds. I dashed into the house.

“Mom! My guy’s on the roof. I’m gonna go out and get him.”

I hadn’t made it two steps up the staircase before my mom said, “No, you most certainly are not!”

I stopped dead and grabbed the railing with both hands. “But MOM!”

“I said no!”

“But he’s just right there! I’ll be out and in—“

“Jansky, you are NOT to go out onto that roof and get him! Do you understand me?”

I flopped down onto the step and sat there with my head in my hands. Horrible visions started playing in my mind. Colt Seavers would get soaked if it rained. I recalled one time I dropped a paperback book into the plastic backyard pool, and it just got soaked. When the book finally dried, after several days, it had almost tripled in thickness. It was still a book, of course, but it had been ruined. I was afraid the same thing would happen to Colt Seavers…that the cotton inside him would absorb the water and he’d bloat up and be ruined. I imagined that a bird would swoop down and take him away or tear him apart to get the stuffing out and use it in the construction of some nest somewhere.

“Do you understand me?”

I sighed. “Yes, I understand.”

“Don’t go on the roof.”

“God, I get it, ok?” I stood and stomped up to my room.

I climbed onto my bed, kneeled at the window with my arms crossed on the windowsill and set my chin on my arm. I looked at Colt Seavers, lying there on his back with his feet lower than his head on the roof incline and his left hand sticking over the edge. I wanted to get him. I NEEDED to get him, if for no other reason than to just put him away in his proper place on the TV stand. I never left my toys outside. Never.

Then it came to me. I didn’t HAVE to go onto the roof to get him. I could stay in my room and accomplish the same thing. I opened the closet door and my dad’s fishing pole off the shelf. I assembled the rod and opened the window. I stuck the pole on out there, but it was too short to reach Colt Seavers. I pulled the pole back a little bit, pressed the line release button on the reel, and cast out the line. I positioned the pole so that the fishing line draped across Colt Seavers, and I reeled it in slowly. The hook caught on the lip of the roof, but all it took was a slight jiggle to free it. A few more clicks of the reel crank and the hook caught Colt Seavers’ hip. I pulled him safely inside.

Just as I removed the hook, my mom came into the room.

“I told you not to get that.” She snatched Colt Seavers from my hand.

“No, you said not to go OUT and get him. I stayed inside and used dad’s fishing pole.” I held it up for her to see.

“You knew what I meant and yet you disobeyed me anyway. Why?”

I was incredibly confused at this situation. I honestly felt that I had obeyed her but was getting in trouble anyway. I fought back tears caused by the confusion and unfairness of it all, and my voice trembled when I spoke. “You said…you said…no to go OUT…and get him.” The tears started to fall. “And I DIDN’T!”

“I told you not to—“

“You said—“

“Don’t interrupt me! I told you not to get him and you did it anyway. You’re grounded.”

“But Mom!” I was incredulous. “You SAID—“

“GROUNDED! And this,” she held up Colt Seavers, “is gone!” She left the room and shut the door.

I fell onto my bed and screamed into my pillow. I cried under the onslaught of emotions. I was confused, frustrated, angry, and helpless. I felt like I had been cheated or betrayed. If I had to guess, I’d say that I was there for about a half hour before I had calmed down enough to emerge from my room. I made my way downstairs to the dining room where my mom was at the table clipping coupons or something. I was dejected, and didn’t (couldn’t?) look at her when I asked, “How long am I grounded?”

Without even having to think about it, she replied with, “Two weeks.”

“OK,” I said. I didn’t ask what I was grounded from, because it was always the same thing: No TV. I went to the kitchen and got a chocolate Jell-O Pudding Pop from the freezer. When I went to throw the wrapper away, I saw it. Colt Seavers and been dismembered and put into the garbage can.

I freaked out. Plain and simple. 

I dropped the Pudding Pop and screamed, “WHY?” Instantly, the world blurred as the tears came again. I ran from the kitchen and repeated “Why why why why why” as I made my way back to my room. I could hear my mom following me.

“I told you not to get him. You didn’t follow the rules, so you lost your toy.”

“But I DID,” I said as I flopped onto my bed. “I DID follow the rules, you said not to go out and I didn’t go out! And you cut him up. You cut him up and I worked really hard to make him!”

“Well, maybe next time you’ll—“

“No! No no no no no.” I screamed. “Leave me alone! I can’t believe you cut him up!” I buried my face in my pillow and continued to cry. She left my room and I think I cried myself to sleep, even though it wasn’t anywhere close to bedtime.

I didn’t talk to my mom much for a couple of weeks afterward. No more than I had to, anyway. I thought about making another one, but I didn’t remember how to thread a needle in a sewing machine. And besides, I didn’t have the right materials. And there was no way I was going to ask my mom for any help with the project. So…no. I never made another one.

I guess I ultimately forgave my mom for doing what she did. At least, I think I did. There was no “hallmark moment” to signify any forgiveness on my part, no moment where I exhaled all my anger away. In the end, it just came down to the passage of time and how it heals all wounds.

I often think about the marionette, especially when I’m laying down rules for my kids. I try to be clear, but sometimes I haven’t been successful. I’ve said the words, “That’s not what I meant, and you know it” to my kids. And it pained me to do so. But I’ve also said, “You’re right, I wasn’t clear enough and I can understand why you did what you did.” That’s been hard to do as well. But I don’t think admitting such mistakes make me weak. I think it ultimately shows them that I respect them and their views, and I think they’re more likely to show me the same in return. At least I hope so.

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Headaches Are A Pain

I suffered from debilitating migraine headaches for the first 19 years of my life. I’d get them two or three times a week. These headaches could either come about slowly, where I could feel one coming on about an hour or two before it really got its hooks into me, or they could just come out of nowhere; one second everything is fine, the next second I’d be in excruciating pain. The pain was always localized to a single spot, the area between the end of my left eyebrow and the bridge of my nose. It felt like a knitting needle being slowly pushed into my head.

The only thing that could alleviate the pain of these headaches was to sleep for at least 2 hours. If I couldn’t get to sleep, the pain would eventually become so intense that I would end up vomiting. Once that happened the pain would get exponentially worse and would continue until I fell asleep or pass out.

No drugs worked to alleviate the pain. Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, Bufferin, Excedrin, Motrin…all ineffective. I had CAT Scans done that showed nothing out of the ordinary. I was prescribed Fioricet, which caused my headaches to increase in intensity and remain even after sleeping for several hours. Switching to Fiorinal yielded more of the same.

The only thing that worked, at least for a while, was a Pamprin. But then, after time, it took two Pamprin. Then three. At that point, I stopped because who in the hell can survive a regimen of that much Pamprin several times a week?

In 1987, I was a Junior in high school. A few weeks after a Senior girl and I started dating, we had made plans to see the movie Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors that coming Friday night. And, wouldn’t you know it, Friday afternoon I felt a headache coming on. When I got home from school, I made sure to take a nap. That nap only lasted for about 90 minutes, but my headache was gone when I woke up. I made a frozen pizza, ate, showered, dressed, and left to pick up my date.

We got to the theater, bought the tickets, obtained out concessions (large popcorn and soft drinks), and took our seats. About this time, I could feel a headache coming on. I wouldn’t say that this was a new headache, as I had never before experienced a headache after successfully eliminating a prior one by sleeping. However, I had only slept for about 90 minutes earlier that day and not my usual two hours. This was the return of my previous headache, which had been temporarily kept at bay but was now coming at me like The Terminator. It couldn’t be bargained with. It couldn’t be reasoned with. It didn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and would absolutely not stop. I said nothing, not wanting to leave the movie and disappoint my date.

There’s a scene in the movie where Freddy Krueger kills a guy named Phillip, a habitual sleepwalker, by using Phillip’s veins and arteries as marionette strings, walking him off a tower so that he falls to his death. During this scene, when the arteries and veins were on fully display, the nausea from my headache became too much. I excused myself to my date and headed to the restroom, where I began vomiting. Retching loudly, my whole body was tense from the violent expulsion of popcorn and pizza. I’m sure my face was beet red, and I was seeing spots before my eyes. My nose was running, and I was coughing between heaves. It was bad.

I don’t know how long I was in there, but it must have been a concerning amount of time because someone said, “Is there a Janksy in here?”

I vomited. Spit. “Yeah. That’s...” Vomit. “Me.”

“There’s a young lady out here who seem concerned. Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Heurrgggk. “I’ll be out soon,” I panted.

But I wasn’t fine. Even though I was sitting on the floor of a movie theater bathroom stall, puking out was seemed to be every bit of fluid from my body and everything I ate EVER, I was only concerned that this girl would think that I was grossed out by the movie and that I was some kind of wuss who couldn’t handle a little gore. Which is so far from the truth. I love that kind of stuff. But I was so afraid that she would think otherwise.

I stood at the sink, still in exquisite pain but no longer nauseated, splashing water on my face, and rinsing out my mouth, all the while going over how I was going to explain what was happening so it didn’t sound like some lame excuse to make myself not seem like a squeamish milquetoast.

I came out of the bathroom and she was standing there, genuinely concerned.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But we’re going to have to go. I have a really bad headache and I was throwing up in the bathroom. It’s not because of the movie, just so you know. I don’t get grossed out at stuff like that. I just get these really bad headaches.” On the way home (she drove), through searing pain, I told her my history, what had happened earlier in the day, apologizing for ruining the date, and reiterating that it wasn’t the scene in the movie that made me sick. But, she was happy to have just spent time with me.

We eventually married 8 years later.

But, I don’t want to leave you hanging there, all worried that I still suffer from these headaches that make me wish for the sweet release that only death can bring. Because I don’t get them anymore. In 1988, my mom suggested I go to a chiropractor to see if he could do anything for me. As it turns out, I didn’t have the proper spinal curvature in my neck. After twice a week visits for a year, I have not had one of my headaches since 1989 (knock wood).

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Teenage Dream Come True

Ever since I first saw the Cincinnati Stingers hockey puck that my friend Donny had, I had wanted one. Whenever we’d spend time together at his house, either playing on the computer (Timex Sinclair 1000), rocking out to Def Leppard’s Pyromania, or whatever the hell else 13-year-olds did in 1983, I always had his hockey puck in my hands. I remember running my fingers over the textured edges, which contrasted with smooth top and bottom. I remember feeling insanely jealous that Donny had one and that I never would. You see, the Cincinnati Stingers had shut down operations a few years before, in 1979, after only four seasons.

So, when Cincinnati got a new hockey team (Cyclones) in 1990, I was overjoyed that I would finally have an opportunity to acquire a hockey puck of my very own.

In February 1991, my girlfriend (now wife) and I got tickets for a Cyclones game for the following week. I was counting down the days until I could buy my puck. I know I must have driven her crazy with how much I kept talking about it leading up to the day of the game. After we parked the car in the lot down the street from The Cincinnati Gardens, the venue where the game was to be played, she had to constantly pull on my arm and tell me to slow down. “Stop rushing. They’re not going to sell out.”

When I finally got to the merchandise kiosk, I dutifully looked at everything they had to offer. Key chains, bumper stickers, jerseys, shirts, hats, pins, blah blah blah. But I really didn’t have to look at everything as if I were trying to decide on what to buy. I knew what I was going to get.

“I’d like a hockey puck, please.” I didn’t even look at the guy. My hands were on the glass countertop; my eyes focused on my personal Holy Grail.

“A puck? You sure?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”

 I gave him my money. He handed me the puck. MY puck. The thing I had wanted…wished for…for several years was finally mine. I turned to my girlfriend and smiled.

“You happy?” she asked.

“So happy,” I said, and we went to find our seats.

I don’t remember anything about the game itself. I spent most of my time fiddling with the puck. I ran my fingers over the textured edge, contrasting it with the smoothness of the top and bottom, as I did with Donny’s puck all those years ago. I squeezed it, knowing that there was no way I could ever affect its shape. I knocked it against the seat in front of me to hear the solid “thump” sound, wincing at the thought of what it must feel like to be hit by one flying into the stands from an errant shot from the ice.

Midway through the 3^rd period, an announcement came over the PA system. “FANS, THE CINCINNATI CYCLONES AND RADIO STATION B-105 REMIND YOU TO COLLECT YOUR SOUVINIR PUCK AS YOU LEAVE THE FACILITY! STAFF WILL BE STATIONED AT ALL EXITS HANDING THEM OUT! PLEASE, ONLY ONE PUCK PER PERSON!”

My mouth fell open in disbelief. Suddenly, the puck in my hand had become less special. I had my one, the one I had coveted and dreamed about for 7 ½ years.  And now, I was going to get a second. AND a third, because my girlfriend and I lived together.

I picked up my puck as we left, laughing with my girlfriend about how things turned out. By the time we got to the car, things were better.  The puck I bought wasn’t branded with the B-105 logo. I took comfort in the fact that I owned a puck that wasn’t easily identifiable as a promotional item.

I also like to think that I was a topic of conversation with the merchandise guys when they were inventorying what they had sold that night.

“Well, we sold 19 keychains, 11 bumper stickers, 2 jerseys, 8 shirts, 2 hats, 16 pins, and…oh! Some idiot bought a puck if you can believe it!”

So, yeah. I bought a puck on Puck Night.

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Unaware and Don't Care

 

For a good, long time (since the late 1980’s), I’ve worn a hat.  Until recently, it’s always been a baseball cap.  I once had this grand idea that I would get 366 baseball caps, one for each day of the year, plus 1 outrageous one for Feb 29^th.  That plan never came to fruition, but I did manage to accumulate 30-40 different hats.

One of the best hats I have, based on the feel of the hat, is the Ohio State University hat given to me by my daughter. She attended school there and, knowing my hat-wearing ways, got one for me. The bill isn’t flat; it’s curved just enough. The front panels aren’t stiff with the plastic mesh; it soft and floppy all around.  It’s super comfortable.

The only thing I don’t like about the hat is that it elicits people into assuming something about me that isn’t true. I’m not really into sports and, most definitely, couldn’t care less about college sports. But, somehow, wearing that red hat with silver O encouraged people to ask me about the game and what I thought about the past/upcoming season.

“I don’t know, dude. I wear the hat because my kid goes there.”

There was this one time when I went to a doctor’s office with my 16-year-old son. He had broken his wrist and we were getting his cast removed. The nurse called for us to be taken back and he said something as we were making out way through the hallway to the exam room. I didn’t really pay attention to what he said, but it sounded like he was saying some kind of code. I assumed it was addressed to the other employees since he wasn’t speaking directly to me or my son.

After we got situated in the room and did the preliminary stuff, he looked at me and said, “Oh aitch.”

It was the same thing that he said in the hallway when he called us back. “Excuse me?”

“Oh aitch.”

I looked at my son and back to the nurse. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

He pointed. “Your hat.”

“My hat?” I took it off and looked at it. “What about it?”

“Oh aitch.”

I was incredibly confused. “No…there’s just an O on it.”

And then, he said something different. “I oh.”

I looked at him as though he was speaking an alien language. “Whaaat?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “O-H…I-O.”

“Ohio,” I said. “And?”

He sighed. “That chant, man. Call and response. I say ‘O-H’ then you say “I-O.”

“Ohhhhhhhh,” I said. “Why?”

“Because that’s the Ohio State chant.”

“I don’t know about any of that, dude. I wear the hat because my kid goes there.”

 

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The Bread Shelf Boy

 

I began dating the woman would become my wife, L, in 1987. I was a Junior in high school. She was a Senior.

After she left my house on the night that she first met my parents, my mom said, “She looks just the same.”

As you can imagine, I was a bit stunned by this comment. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“She used to come into the bakery all the time.”

You see, way back in the mid 1970’s, my mom worked at a place called Jacob’s Bakery at 3073 Madison Rd in Oakley.  In the summer and on weekends, my mom would often take me to work with her.  I’d lay in my sleeping bag and watch a little black and white TV and run around playing on the common area floor.  I had a particular affinity for laying on and taking naps on the bread shelf.

The next day, at school, I told L that my mom recognized her as a little girl who would stop in the bakery every so often.

L said yes, she’d stop at the bakery for a donut as she walked home from church on Sundays.

I told here all about how I’d be there with my sleeping bag and TV, and how I liked sleeping on the bread shelf.

L gasped. “You’re the Bread Shelf Boy?”

I laughed. “The what?”

She told me that she would see me when she stopped in the bakery and how she told her mom about the little boy who was there that would sometimes sleep on the bread shelf.

It’s almost like we were meant to be together.

 

 

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Three Little Words

 

I HATE television shows that end with “To be continued…”

After spending approximately an hour going through the emotional ups and downs of the characters as they search for one of their friends who had been kidnapped by an elite criminal organization…and that friend is being tortured and about to be force fed raw chicken through a beer bong…there is nothing, I mean NOTHING, more frustrating than to read the words “…to be continued” on the bottom of the screen.

How’d my feeling about that come to be?

I was about 8 years old and we (my mom, dad, and I) were in Toledo, Ohio on our yearly visit with my mom’s relatives. There are 2 reasons I liked going to Toledo. I usually got to stay with my cousins at their house while my parents stayed at my grandmother’s house, and the show Ultraman was on TV in Toledo.

This one trip to Toledo was going to include a visit to Cedar Point Amusement Park on Friday, so I had to stay with my parents at my grandmother’s house. Thursday morning, I watched Ultraman, as I had all week long. It was a good episode, too. Ultraman was fighting some kind of monster and he lost his beta capsule. That’s the thing that gave Ultraman his power. So, Ultraman is getting weaker by the minute and the monster thing is really beating up on him. But this little kid finds Ultraman’s beta capsule and runs to the battle. Ultraman is on the verge of collapsing when the kid shows up with the beta capsule and then….TO BE CONTINUED! This is high drama! It doesn’t get any better than this. I just have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning came, and my mom woke me up to get ready to go to Cedar Point. We were going to leave at 8am. But Ultraman didn’t come on until 10! I begged and I pleaded with my parents to let me watch Ultraman. We could leave at 10:30. But they wouldn’t hear of it. I started crying, screaming about how unfair the situation is. I was really upset. I wanted to see what was going to happen. Was it going to be the last episode of Ultraman? Or was he going to be saved? And how? These were questions that BEGGED to be answered. Finally, my parents told me that Ultraman would be at Cedar Point. Well, that’s all I needed to hear. I was ready to go. All the way to the park, I was thinking about seeing Ultraman. If I couldn’t see the episode, at least I could ask him what had happened. At the park, I kept asking where Ultraman was. I kept being told things like, “He’ll be here later” or “Let’s go through the mirror maze first.” But ya know what? Ultraman wasn’t there. I had been duped. And the worst part about it, in my 8-year-old mind, was that I had missed Part 2 of the show. I didn’t get to see the end.

And that’s why I hate “to be continued.” I don’t want to risk being that disappointed again. Of course, I could just plan on being in front of my TV same bat-time, same bat-channel next week, but I don’t want to feel I’m being held hostage by a stupid TV show. So, I’ve generally stayed away from hour long dramas that have ongoing story-arcs. I know that, with the advent of TiVo and DVR’s, the disappointment factor has pretty much been addressed. But I still don’t want to invest that kind of time in an ongoing show such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Blue Bloods,” “NCIS: Wherever” and “Yellowstone.”

Just in case you feel pity for me for not ever having seen Part 2 of that Ultraman show, you should know that…a few years ago…a couple of good friends from work who were aware of this tragic childhood trauma of mine, called upon the Internet and the power of eBay and presented me with 4 DVD’s that include all 39 episodes of Ultraman. ALL 39! Yes, even PART 2! After almost 35 years, I was able to see how Ultraman survived, how he gets the Beta Capsule back, and how he defeated the monster and saved the day.

It wasn’t anything that spectacular. Ultraman simply retrieved the beta capsule from the kid, recharged his power, and won the fight. Bit of a letdown, really, after building up the suspense in my mind for all those years.

But something quite unexpected happened after that. I had sort of an identity crisis type thing. I had been “the guy who hadn’t seen part 2 of Ultraman” for most of my life. And once I saw it, part of me wasn’t sure who I was anymore. Similar to Inigo Montoya (from the Princess Bride) telling Westley, “I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.” It took about a week for me get over that feeling.

I still can’t stand “to be continued…”, though. I won’t watch streaming series that release episodes once a week. I’ll wait until all episodes drop, and then binge it over a couple of days.

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Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

A good number of years ago when my daughter, S, was in third grade, her school had a technology fund raiser. These particular funds were raised by students selling items from the Sally Foster Catalog. Of course, there were incentives designed to motivate the students to sell. If a student collected X dollars, that student got to choose a prize from X level. If a student collected Y dollars, then that student chose a prize from Y level. S immediately saw what she wanted: A plastic coin-sorter/bank in the shape of a combination lock. So, she sold what she needed to sell to meet the prize eligibility requirements.

A couple of weeks after the fundraiser was over, she picked up her prize. When I got home from work that day, she showed me how it worked and showed me how to do the combination. She was just so excited about it. About 8:00pm, her brother, Z, got hold of it and attempted to open it without using the combination. He succeeded but broke it in the process. S was devastated. Cried and cried and cried. Now, S is a worrywart. She frets and worries about things and works herself up to the point where she’s crying…usually about things that MIGHT happen tomorrow or next week. I knew that if I didn’t tell her something, she’d be up all-night fighting back tears. So, I told her that we’d take the sorter-slash-bank back to school, tell Mr. C (the guy who is in charge of the incentives) we discovered it was broken when we opened it, and ask if another could be ordered. This calmed her down and she was able to get a decent night’s sleep.

The next morning, I was thinking about it some more and, on our way to school, we talked about lying. I told her that I really really wanted her to have her sorter bank, because she worked so hard for it and it wasn’t fair that her brother broke it. But I also told her that I was afraid I would be teaching her a wrong lesson by lying about the circumstances of the damage to get what we want. What’s more, I told her that if we told Mr. C that it was broken though carelessness, there’s a chance that he’d refuse to order another one because, hey, we didn’t take care of the one we had. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Dad, I know lying is wrong, but it’s just this one time.” Right away, my fears about her being taught a wrong lesson were solidified and it hit me like a hammer.

“Honey, is killing someone wrong?”

“Sure it is, Dad.”

“OK, but what if we did it just once? Just this one time?”

“No. Killing is wrong.”

“That’s right. So how is that any different from lying…just this once?”

“Because lying isn’t the same as killing someone. Besides, we’re talking about a plastic bank, not someone’s life.”

“True, but the idea is the same. It’s wrong to lie/kill/steal/cheat, but it’s ok if we only do it just this one time. Does that sound right to you?”

“No.”

“So, we’ll tell Mr. C the truth. That your brother broke it.”

“But what if he won’t order another one?”

“Then…we’ll kill your brother. Just this once. Honey, I don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe we’ll make Z give you his allowance until we can go buy another one on our own.”

We arrived at school and she went to her room, while I made my way to Mr. C’s office. I told him the truth about what happened, and asked if it were possible to get another one. He said, “Sure. I’ll return this one as “damaged upon receipt” and order a new one. Fill out this form and you’ll get it when it comes in.” I thanked him and left.

I remember how that got me thinking about the role that that lies play in our society. Clearly, there was no thought involved in Mr. C’s choice to mark the item “damaged upon receipt,” even though he knew that wasn’t that case. Just as there wasn’t any thought involved when I initially told S that we’d tell Mr. C that the sorter bank was broken when we got it. Reflexively, the instinct was to lie to get what we wanted. Lie to win. If lying is so ingrained…so indoctrinated into our culture…why is so much time and effort spent trying to tell children that lying is wrong? Aren’t they just going to grow up and make decisions about what’s “OK” to lie about and what isn’t anyway?

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