As is the case with many of these entries, this week I started down one path and now I’ve been diverted to a completely different path. When this does happen it is typically because my mind is jolted to some firework memory due to something happening in current real life times. I’m not sure exactly how that plays into the whole idea of looking back to move forward, maybe looking at now to look back and then use that information to deal with the now. Ok, I think I’ve lifted the covers off enough of the sausage making for one week. So I’ll work this entry logically as it is based on something that happened less than 5 minutes ago.
As my wife was going through my preschoolers Darth Vader backpack just now she pulled out an old cell phone that the kids play with at school. My wife and I are very familiar with this “toy” as we have both been at the school on our son’s special day and all of the children are very fond of it. My wife immediately asked him why this phone was in his bag to which he responded that he didn’t know and that he didn’t put it there. With a little more coaxing he admitted that he did put it there because he liked the phone, essentially admitting to stealing it from his school. So we’re currently working on how we’re going to deal with that. All that being said, the intention of this analysis into my unwritten diary is not to air my son’s dirty laundry or to persecute him online. It did however, immediately shoot me back to the Gold Circle when I was probably 10 or 11 years old…
So I’m at the Gold Circle with my Mom running errands or some shit like that I think, I was the youngest and typically got hauled around for things like this. Also, I may have liked to do things like this with my Mom and might’ve asked to go, sooooo. Wait, what’s that? What’s the Gold Circle? Oh my, it was this awesome discount department store located in, for me, Willoughby Ohio. It was like Target for poor people. Yeah, I know what I just said, and I stand by it. The Gold Circle was, however, glorious.
So at some point I told my Mom I was going to go check out the toy section. The toy section in these stores was like the equivalent of being in Santa’s workshop. I still like going to the toy section of any department store today. So after perusing the toy section I somehow convince my Mom to buy me a G.I. Joe action figure. Really this is the part of the story that I should be exploring because I have no clue how I convinced her to buy me something randomly at the store. Not to say my Mom was some kind of B, but she just managed the little money we had down to pretty much the cent to buy us food and clothes.
So what did I do with this moment my Mom sent a little extra kindness my way and said, “Yes, you can have one, but just one, so pick the one you want”? I took a shit all over it. I won’t save the big reveal given I’ve kind of told you the end up front, but let’s just say that this asshole took a nice thing his Mom found some room to do and ran it through the mud. So then what do I do? I do what all kids do when they actually get something, or see a moment of “weakness”, and I push for a little more (trust me I know, I have three samples I see this play out from on a regular basis), I ask, can I get two G.I. Joes, to which she probably responded very kindly, “Nope, just one”, while she was thinking, ‘My Lord this kid is a greedy little asshole, like seriously can’t just getting one random G.I. Joe, which rarely happens, be enough’. So I asked for two because I was torn between two fantastic man dolls, and also because I’m a greedy asshole but mostly the hard time deciding thing. So I was torn between these two fellas…
Shipwreck or Barbecue (as a side note Barbecue would end up being ranked as one of the top 10 best G.I. Joe action figures in history).
So I went with Shipwreck. I mean the guy had a fucking parrot. Who doesn’t want a parrot as part of their action figure collection? You’re correct, no one, there is no one that would say, “Actually I’d rather not have the parrot as part of my collection of US war superheroes”, thank you very much.
So my Madre and I are rolling around Gold Circle finishing up whatever dumb, read super important, shit my Mom had to do there and I’m elated with my soon to be new addition, and his fucking parrot, to my G.I. Joe elite team of real American heroes. Of course, as we’re rolling around Gold Circle I hear the Barbecue figure calling for me.
He’s saying things like, “Are you sure you made the correct choice?”, to which I firmly answer in my head, “I think so?” Then he’s saying things like, “Yeah, Shipwreck has a cool fucking parrot but look at me, I look like an elite and important fighting machine and Shipwreck kind of looks like a drunk asshole. I have an axe with a handle guard that has spikes going around it and a kick ass fire extinguisher that straps to my back and has a cool black cord that no other G.I. Joe action figure has. Yeah I don’t have a fucking parrot, but I could cook that parrot for dinner over the fire I’m eventually going to extinguish.”
I mean, you have to respond to that type of calling right. (Notice how I didn’t put a question mark after that sentence, that’s because it wasn’t a question.)
So we check out at the Gold Circle and at some point I say something I must’ve thought was really convincing about how I had to run back to the toy section real quick and do something. I can’t remember what that was. I might’ve said something like I changed my mind and was gonna go get the Barbecue dude instead. Funny because the toy section was way in the back of the store and we had essentially finished checking out. Red flag anyone? This is the worst crime ever committed. I might as well have been busted before this heist has even begun. Anyhow I come running back to the front of the store after jamming Barbecue into my bag along with Shipwreck thinking now I have this kick ass looking firefighter dude and the guy with the fucking parrot to add to my lean mean bunch of fighting machines.
Here’s the thing though, I come back real awkward, like all jittery and jumpy, like a cocaine addict everyone thinks has been clean for six months only he knows he’s currently way fucked up and he’s still trying to sell it like he’s sober. I remember the place had those double glass doors you walked out of in the front, no fancy step on the mat and the doors open at that time. So we’re leaving and I recall very vividly, firework memory, opening the exit door for my Mom and then opening the other door next to it at the same time so that I’m awkwardly standing in the middle of the doors in front of her cart essentially blocking her way out. Super awkward as I’m not thinking real clearly because the adrenaline has a shit ton of blood pumping to my brain. So then I try to defuse the situation and I remember exactly saying in kind of a funny, probably shaky, voice, “He was the man stuck in the middle.” I can’t express enough how awkward and stupid that phrase came out. I think I used a deeper voice to say it. I mean it was so awkward and stupid that I’ve remembered it ever since.
Immediately after this idiotic moment we’re walking out and my Mom says, “Hey, let me see which guy you got”, and takes my bag away from me to look in it. I responded by setting up my rock solid defense and say, “Oh I got both…right?” She sees both Shipwreck and Barbecue in there (those fellas were probably having an awesome time and looking forward to getting back to my house to get out of their packages and play drinking games amongst themselves and the fucking parrot) and immediately turns the cart around back to the store and I follow after her like a puppy that’s sorry for shitting on the rug. I don’t think she said anything directly to me, just turned and headed back inside the good old GC.
So she goes straight to the Customer Service desk and when the wiener there asks my Mom how he can help her she says, “My son has these two action figures in his bag and we only paid for one.” Then she turns to me and says, “You want to tell him how that happened?”, and I think I stammer something stupid like the cashier lady must’ve put them both in there. So then she turns to wiener and says, “He stole it.”
Stop the world I want to get off. What did she just say? After that everything was kind of a blur.
I do unfortunately remember that I refused to give in to the fact that I had stolen Monsieur Barbecue and I wasn’t allowed out of my room until I confessed. I remember so not being able to face my shame that at one point I wrote on a piece of paper that I had stolen BBQ and said I was sorry and then I folded that paper into a paper airplane and was planning to just throw it at my Mom while she was in the kitchen and then run away. I think I eventually fessed up face to face.
We still ended up with Shipwreck and his cool fucking parrot but I don’t think I took possession of him for some time. He was probably drunk as fuck by the time I got him out of the package. I never added Barbecue to my collection, the pain of the memories was just too great.
So my youngest has written his apology letter and I’ll be escorting him to preschool tomorrow where we’ll be having a side conference with the teacher and he’ll have to admit to what he did, verbally apologize and then deliver his apology note. It’ll be like an inspiring moment from Scared Straight, one criminal trying to teach a potential would be criminal to walk the straight and narrow. I guess we go through things like this and have these moments, and no greater realization of it than right now, in order to better teach our kids. I have a connected understanding of what the kid is going through and I have big time empathy for him, but I also know this moment has to make an impact, has to create a firework moment in his brain to know, well, that really kind of sucked and I don’t want to go through it again.
Later in life when shoplifting became all the rage amongst my teenage friends I sort of sat the whole episode out. I’m not saying I never took anything again, but I made sure I could absolutely get away with it or more confidently blame it on someone else.
G.I. Joe! Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.
