When Geeks Breed

So The Man Cub is developing a Superman fixation. We’ve watched some of the ’50s TV series together, although there’s not enough flying and crashing into things there for the boy. Might as well call it “The Clark Kent Show.”

Much better are the Max Fleischer cartoons from the 1940s. Pretty much non-stop flying and crashing and rescuing that damned Lois Lane, who through simple stupidity and guile, places herself in mortal jeopardy every single episode. The cartoon Superman didn’t come to earth to save the world, he came here to save Lois Lane.

That aside, The Man Cub has also grown up in a room with a giant poster, expensively mounted, of Superman clutching a flowing American flag. And he has Superman PJs. Realizing I’m no kind of role model myself for my son, I’m trying to introduce him to some. For instance, he also has a poster of a young Johnny Cash in his room, looking down at his bed.

All of this is to be expected When Geeks Breed. Maybe there’s an evolutionary imperative at work that keeps us from getting laid until we’re old and getting tired. By that time, we crank out one, two kids, tops. Nobody ever promised the geeks we were going to inherit anything except the next day’s ass-kicking after school behind the gym.

What I didn’t expect was for The Missus to encourage this sort of comic-book foolishness. Imagine my surprise recently when I noticed that she had begun affixing the optional red cape to the boy’s Superman pajamas. Now he runs excitedly through the house (and both yards) with his arms splayed out in front of him, gargling some kind of toddler approximation of the Superman fanfare that always accompanies flying scenes. Last night, apparently thinking I wasn’t ‘getting it,’ he came running up to my desk and explained, “I flying, Daddy! I flying!”

It was an awesome moment. As long as he grows out of it by first grade. I don’t want my son getting his ass handed to him by the school bully because he’s wearing a Superman costume to school. I want it to be for the same reason his dad got his ass kicked, because he smarted off to stupider kids who were bigger than he was.

You need a lot of righteous indignation to keep your engines running full-out if you’re going to grow up to save the world.