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Mot was a short, black-haired man who could be described using a number of adjectives that ended in -umpy. In general he had an ill temper. He had prominent muscles as a result of his fanatical weightlifting, a trait that had required a certain amount of adjustment in the years since he had lost his right arm during an ill-fated safari, as he put it: "Fighting a pair of alligators," which may not have been entirely true.
Nobody really knew the truth about his missing limb, and few entirely understood how he kept the agricultural warrens maintained so well with only one arm. But his resilience in the face of life's oddities had given him an occasional endearing quality, and Leonin visited him when he needed perspective.
Wisric, for reasons unknown to Stasko, seemed to cringe when Jarvis was around.
On this occasion, however, the commons around Mot's office was quiet; Mot wasn't waving his arm threateningly from the break table as he tended to do quite often, but his office door was open. A transmitter buried somewhere in the office was busily spitting out animated conversation.
In the doorway stood the hulking silhouette of Resfarl, one of the few who had managed the transition from Brush to Graevon. If there was one common thread among lunatics it was that they always seemed to prefer keeping the Atlas-types around.
Saunders slowed and took hold of a length of metal conduit near one of the terminals. “I’ll handle Resfarl; you guys go on ahead.”
Anya gave him an incredulous stare. “Have you lost your mind?”
Gregg paused in mid-step. He hadn’t expected an argument.
“Why in space would you want to split up at a time like this?” continued Rayleigh. “We have no idea what that Borius character might be planning.”
“Just go; don’t worry about Resfarl,” insisted Gregg.
“I’m not worried about Resfarl,” she stated flatly. “There is exactly one of him right now, and he doesn’t even have a gun.”
“I'll handle him! Find Graevon and stop him before he commits another act of genocide.” He made prolonged eye contact with her, trying to convey an inability to accept anything other than compliance.
It hardly made a difference.
“Skabs to that! What do you take me for?” She broke his gaze and gestured indignantly toward the other man. “Is this supposed to be some sort of idiotic macho act?”
He stepped back momentarily. “No,” he began, with marginally less certainty than before. “But this will give you time to--”
“Time to what?” she asked, clearly uninterested in any clarifying statements. “Worry about your misguided hide because you want to play the martyr while we're chasing down a madman? Fine.”
She fired two shots, one into each of Micco Resfarl’s knees. His legs gave way almost in unison, no longer coordinating their actions with the rest of his body, and with his weight unsupported he buckled over, clearly out of commission. “Have it your way. While you’re busy being irrational and clubbing him up with your new toy, the rest of us will be solving problems instead of creating them.”
If It Makes You Feel Any Better, You’re My Favorite Child.
Posted by ooaverage in Through the Commentator's Glasses on January 30, 2014
Telling them that only works until the second one rolls around. At that point you develop problems.
(No, I don’t have kids. Or kid.)
I’ve been fortunate enough to land a few Lego sets over the last couple years, having received them from a friend, my brother, and my sister-in-law. Each one has been unwrapped with the mental equivalent of “Legos? I love Legos! I used to have so many of…” as the realization sets in.
And then I understand why I am never allowing a 14-year-old to make major decisions for me again.
I’m sure there are lots of reasonable 14-year-olds out there. I was not one of them. (14 year-old me sold them all.)
So a couple of months ago I house/horse sat for a family from church, one whose house just happened to have a whole pile of fresh plastic pieces ripe for construction. “Have at them!” she (the mom of the household) said. “The grandkids will love it if you put the sets together!” she said. It’s possible.
So out of the goodness of our hearts, a very good friend (who was over to help) and I threw together a collection of starships, bases, armored vehicles and a strange assortment of boats. Naturally we both instantly bonded to our creations. Sadly, unlike 14-year-old me, the people I was sitting for are not the type to do such irrational things as sell their Legos. Curses, foiled again. Such are life’s torments. Oh well.
Anyway, all of this started the gears whirring in my head again. What will happen if I have children and inevitably buy them the same items I was stupid enough to sell?
If these kids are anything like me, they’ll build a lot. And they’ll want to use the cool-looking pieces to make their creations the best they can possibly be. Colorful lasery bits, maybe some missiles, sleek black angular wings. Sure, you can build a spaceship using random handfuls of yellow and black and white and red and grey and blue and the like, but color soup is hardly aesthetically pleasing. And you certainly won’t win space battles without weapons.
So if they’re anything like me, the good pieces will disappear. And if these kids are anything like your average four-year-old, the results of their efforts will be less than spectacular.
And there we find the problem. What kind of fiend would cannibalize the pieces off of his kids’ stuff?
Answer: Probably not me. But I would have a very hard time not muttering out “not really” when they jump onto the chair in front of me and say “Daddy, wookat the ship I made! Isn’t it pretty!” because I have lost my ability to lie convincingly. Moreso when I wanted those missiles.
“Whatever that is looks like a walrus with landing struts.” “If you tried to fly it, the crew would die a quick death because you haven’t given it walls,” are things that I most likely would not say. “I still love you, but you should probably stick to terrorizing your mother and I with inane children’s songs.”
I don’t understand how parents can keep a straight face while commending their kids for a drawing of a sausage with lazy eye. That right there is the definition of grading on a curve. (The others being graded on said curve are too young to understand anyway) It’s relativism at its most insidious, folks.
But at the same time, if I were to follow my less-than-socially-acceptable instincts, and inform the little people that ugly blob ships and sausages with ocular defects are not in high demand, the kids would go through life (wrongly) convinced that they have no skill. (Unless they started out as some kind of toy or art savants. That would be cool, and I would shower them with compliments.)
My stock answer will always be: “Keep at it, one day you’ll be really good.”
Children, Legos, Lies, Self-esteem
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