Birthday at the Wright Household
Yesterday, when I came home, Orville ran up to me and said, “I have a bookmark!” and was chided by his mother, “That was supposed to be a secret!” He made me a bookmark to give me as a birthday present, but, overwhelmed with pleasure at the prospect of giving a gift, blurted it out. Naturally, I was pleased, since I don’t mind having a son who does not keep secrets from me.
I am forty-two today. Here I am at work, and I get a phone call from my wife, wishing me a happy birthday. In the background, I hear my children screaming happily.
The wife tells me that Orville (who was still asleep when I went off to work) was sad that he did not get to give me his present this morning: he will have to wait for tonight. We talk about this and that, and the conversation is interrupted by the wife (addressing the oldest son): “What is that chocolate on your face?” and then a gasp of horror. Orville (who is five) is now old enough and naughty enough to undo the child-safety lock on the refrigerator, and has helped himself to some of Daddy’s birthday cake.
Mother is stern: Daddy is going to have to spank Orville when he gets home. Great. I get to celebrate my birthday by taking my boy to a visit to the spankological institute. However, an examination and autopsy of the cake reveals that is it still in a serviceable condition, and can be eaten, and so, upon appeal, the sentence is commuted to community service (sitting in time-out).
I am still on the phone, a passive auditor of this drama. Orville then hops up to examine Daddy’s birthday presents. He asks about one of them. Mommy, still on the phone, says, “Maybe Daddy will watch Robin Hood with you when he gets home.” (The Erol Flynn version, thank you, not the lame one with the Waterworld guy.) I gently point out to the wife that this had been a surprise: I didn’t know she had bought it for me. She is indignant. “Of course you remember that I bought this for you!”
Naturally, I am delighted that a man my age still gets a cake at all, much less presents. And, at my age, it is the thought that counts, not the surprise, which no one in my family seems to be able to keep anyway. A cake with my son’s chocolate handprint in the middle will taste better than the finest feast the pagan gods of Olympus enjoy.
I am not a religious man, but it is clear, even to me, that God must have a sense of humor, otherwise He would have had us reproduce by fission, or sporing, or something. Children are both a miracle and a source of lowbrow slapstick comedy. A person too coldhearted to wonder at miracles, or too highbrow to laugh at comedy, will have his heart and brow cured of their pretenses when he has kids of his own.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
