Amidst talk of Summer plans and the final days of school approaching, my boys and I started taking about comic books and who our favorite hero and/or villain is. I’m not a comic book reader or collector and neither are my kids, so I was caught off guard by this topic, but I thought I’d play along.
My middle son asked which Marvel character was my favorite so I went with Spiderman, but I quickly changed that to Venom because, let’s face it, Venom is a badass. Mid-kid replied with Spiderman and my oldest replied with Deadpool. I then turned the tables a bit and asked who their favorite DC character was.
After I was met with a collective “huuuh???” with the DC mention, I kicked things off with Batman (again, badass). Mid-kid lost interest and wandered off, so I was left with my oldest son. He looked at me and said steadily, and without hesitation, “Catwoman”.
This was my opportunity to throw a “huuuh???” his way. He then explained why she was his favorite, and for a moment, I felt the innocence of his childhood come to a screeching halt.
“You know…”, he reasoned with the same unwavering conviction as before, “she has a really nice…”. Pause. There was a pause. My male/neanderthal/primitive-mind filled the pause with so many possibilities. Rack. Boobies. You name it, I thought it. I then felt a sadness creep in that I didn’t expect.
Was this the turning point when my oldest went from “innocent kid” to “gutter-minded man-child”? What happens now? Would all of his interests soon change? Would I need to have “the talk” or “a talk” or “one in a series of talks” with him? “Where are the brakes? He’s growing up to fast!!!”, my mind ranted and echoed. This entire inner monologue too place in just under five seconds. That may be a new record, even for me. Back to reality…
The pause ended and he resumed his explanation. “She has a nice…motorcycle”. Motorcycle? Did I hear that right? Women don’t have motorcycles as part of their natural anatomy. Bullet dodged! I started chuckling at his response and he got mad, thinking I was making fun of his selection. I had to reassure him that I wasn’t laughing at him, necessarily. It was a combination of relief and a few other emotions that escaped and formed a jovial response. I asked if she had any other assets that he liked.
“She has a cool helmet that looks like a Storm Trooper!”, he exclaimed. “That’s cool!”, I replied. Seriously, that’s freakin’ sweet. If I had a motorcycle, I’d want an awesome helmet to go with it, and Storm Trooper helmets are slick. “Anything else?”, I asked. “Yeah”, he replied, “she has whip.” Oh goodie…a whip (again, my mind went places it probably shouldn’t). It looks like I might get to have one of “those talks” after all.
