Story of My Life

Over the weekend my wife and I joined some friends for a day of tailgating when the Buckeyes played Iowa. I'm glad the Buckeyes won, but the game shouldn't have been so close. That's all I'm going to say about it. I'm not going to go into a long-winded post-game summary, because I have a different story to tell. And besides, I'm about as qualified to talk about football as a penguin is to talk about flying.

Our kids stayed at our friends' house and played with their kids all day (NOTE: No need to involve CPS. Put down the phone. There was a well compensated babysitter on site). While we adults were watching a real football game, the kids were playing one of their own.

My son doesn't have a helmet, but his friend does. My son got to wear the helmet for part of their front-yard game of tackle football. Until they knocked heads. My son didn't feel a thing. His friend realized that the helmet does not offer bidirectional protection. In a brief moment of fair play, they agreed neither would wear the helmet. It was the best play of the day. (NOTE: Awww.)

My son was also enthralled with shoulder pads. They just jumped to the top of his Christmas list. He likes how "they make the muscles of your arm look so big." They are what all of his SuperIronSpider-MorphinBat-PowerMan costumes dream about being.

"There are third graders who play tackle football with pads. Can you believe it?" he asked me.

"Sure, why?" I asked.

"That's crazy! They could get hurt, playing tackle for real, and they're only in third grade."

"You played tackle the other day and you're only in second grade."

"I mean, I might want to do it...but it's still crazy!"

Story of my life.

Coming up next week: The Time I Jumped out of a Perfectly Good Airplane