"The Oilers moved to Tennessee where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don't allow music." - Baseketball

 

The bell of the USS Texas. I would have hated to be the guy who knocked the first chunk off the bottom. I mean, what exactly do you tell the Captain? “Dude, I broke the ship’s bell?” just doesn’t seem to convey the sense of trouble that you’d be in. I get the same thing with Pugsley after he uses a fork to create an impromptu three-year-old welding rig in his bedroom, the better to weld Legos™ then. “Dude, I seem to have tripped the breaker?”

The Boy, Pugsley, and I have been working recently. Mainly on things like competing on extraneous gas production, but beyond that, we also have been working around the house. Seems like I’ve been ignoring minor maintenance on the house for a few years, and now my list is down to 186 63 items now.

Working with them is, well, interesting. The Boy has some ability to help, but I’m not quite ready to turn him loose with a chainsaw. Yet. He can fetch most things that I ask for, even if they’re in extremely odd places. “Dad, I found the Vice-Grips®, underneath your underwear in the drawer.” Oh, sure, Internet, laugh, but I’m betting that there have been times you wished you had a nice pair of Vice-Grips™ in your shorts.

Pugsley? More difficult. Getting productive labor out of him is akin to getting productive labor out of a kitten. Oh, sure, the kitten appears to be willing to help you, and will try its darndest to figure out what you want, but as soon as somebody tosses a ball of yarn at it, it’ll lose attention faster than a Republicrat when confronted with a pile of taxpayer money. I apologize for the multi-layered metaphor, but let’s get to the point – three-year-olds aren’t really a lot of help. And never have been. But they’re cute and fun to have around, and can occasionally figure out what it is you’re wanting, even when you ask for a hammer and he brings an alarm clock and a banana.

Today I was replacing some old floor covering (changing from vinyl tiles to vinyl sheet flooring) and it looked like (I’m sure, since I had a saber saw and an evil gleam in my eye) that I was going to start ripping into the subfloor pretty soon to look for Jimmy Hoffa (note to the Internet – he wasn’t there). The Boy sauntered in and said, “Wow."

Eventually he got bored and attempted to hook up an Atari® to a television set originally assembled (I’m not kidding) when Lyndon Johnson was president. (I can imagine Pop Wilder, skeptically purchasing a “Sony®,” unsure that the Japanese could at all figure out a high-tech task like how to put a television together.) I think Pugsley spent his time figuring out what he might not get in trouble for breaking.

I must take a minute and discuss that Pop Wilder purchased aforesaid television back when people were walking on the moon, and brought it home. It was notable in our house for being the first color television that we ever owned, and probably cost as much as (in inflation-adjusted terms) as Citibank© stock. I mean, well, all of the Citibank™ stock. Pop Wilder brought the television home, and I watched many an episode of Lost in Space and Hogan’s Heroes on it, but one day it stopped producing sound of any form.

Pop Wilder took it back to the dealer, and I’m sure had quite a conversation indicating that he never should have purchased such a piece of Japanese junk as this. The dealer opened it up, called him (long distance, which must have cost enough to replace a kidney in those days) and asked him to come in.

The dealer wordlessly held up the speaker from the television, which had been cut to ribbons.

By?

Me.

Duh. I had a pen knife that Grandpa McWilder gave me, and it made a really cool sound when I put it into the slot on the front of the TV. Eventually I ran out of slots. The next time I turned on the TV? No “Danger, Will Robinson.” No. Just silence.

So, I understand the destructive impulses of the little Wilders, and it’s my job to paint, patch, and repair the damage done by the wee beasties as they attempt to burn, break, discolor, and smash our house and the things in here. I’m okay with that.

Heck, Pop Wilder never even spanked me. Thankfully, he was okay when I poured all of his motor oil into Mason© jars. I don’t think I spilled too much onto the carpet. Heck, if the Clampett family could be rich from some crude, we must be gazillionaires, since the oil was already refined.

What the heck was Pop Wilder doing in keeping all that valuable oil in the garage?