Epic Smack-down is epic

I got some entertainment with this morning's train ride. A thin woman with long blond hair was seated, her chin in her hand. She was obviously grumpy and groggy, a natural state to be in on a Monday morning. Her body language said, "Nobody but a long-lost best friend long thought dead should even think about approaching me." Standing next to her, looming over her and invading her personal space, was a guy trying to chat her up like they were at a bar on "horny co-eds only" night.

She looked up at him and GLARED. We're talking a glare that would have made a single Donal Trump put away the tic-tacks and tuck his tail between his legs and slink off. The Fonz would have apologized for bothering her and walked away. Bling-Bling from Johnny Test would have run to his mad scientist brigade to have them create a new cream for the burn he'd just gotten. Not this guy, He was either too clueless or too arrogant to get the, well, "Hint" isn't the right word for a clue delivered with a metaphorical mallet. He persisted.

She took off a glove and extended her pointer finger. On the back of the finger was a tattoo of the universal "Female" symbol. He kept trying to look around her hand to keep talking to her. He finally processed the symbol on her finger and got a lascivious "Oh yeah," look on his face, complete with an eyebrow waggle.

She, still glaring, shook her head and pointed at the tattoo with her other hand. She then shoved her hand in his face to where she was almost touching his nose.

The nickel dropped for the nit-wit, and he scampered off the train at the next stop. She put her glove back on and resumed her previous position.

Naturally, I wanted to give her kudos but, seeing as how the entire exchange had been about how she wanted to be left alone, I kept to myself.

Honey Badger vs the Darkness

My six year old son had been having problems sleeping at night due largely to the typical childhood fears of monsters, shadows and vague noises. Remembering the fact that Honey Badgers are formidable animals, I hatched a plan where we watched a National Geographic documentary about Honey Badgers. When it was finished my son concluded that honey badgers were about as badass as animals could get. I ordered him a stuffed honey badger and he waited with baited breath for it to arrive.

When the box was opened we played with his stuffed animals a bit, including a sequence where he had to convince his stuffed cheetahs, lions and other fierce creatures to stop being scared of the Honey badger, because he was their friend.

That night when my son went to bed, he brought up his usual fears about scary things in the darkness.

"What time are Honey Badgers most active?" I asked him.

He thought a moment and replied, "At nigh. They're nocturnal."

"Exactly. Your Honey Badger is hunting when you're sleeping. He's on guard while you sleep. That's how he evolved."

My son smiled.

"An you know what else?"

"What?"

"Do you think there's ANYTHING you're scared of that the Honey Badger can't take out?"

He laughed. "No Daddy." He then got very serious. "But what if there's too many for my honey badger to fight?"

"Remember the documentary?"

"Yes."

"Do you think your other stuffies could sleep through the racket of a honey badger fighting?"

He laughed again. "No Daddy."

"Well then, if anything scary comes by, your honey badger will take it out. If it has any trouble, it'll make so much noise in the fight all your other fierce animals will hear the racket and come to your honey badger's aid. By that point there'll be so much noise Mommy and I will wake up too."

"OK Daddy!" he announced, and flopped into bed, fiercely snuggling his new friend.

He still wakes up at night now and then, but generally because he wants to cuddle with Mommy or Daddy. His fear of dark things in the night has pretty much evaporated. He's even taken to venturing downstairs at night, so long as he has the honey badger and one or two other particularly fierce creatures in tow.

Parenting Win

Last might I decided to kill some time before a social event by browsing a bit at Microcenter. I passed a father and his daughter. The daughter looked about 14.  The father was very focused on picking out case fans when the daughter asked him a question. 

"That's a cute little fan. What's it for? A laptop?"

"Hmmm? Oh. That. No, it goes on a CPU heat sync for active cooling. Give me a minute and I'll show you the case fans. Go see if they have the video card you wanted while I do this."

The daughter then happily skipped off to the video card section, referencing a piece of crumpled, smudged notebook paper.

Later on I saw the two of them heading to the checkout. The daughter was giddy with glee at the pile of parts before her and her father was reminding her she'd have to wait until the weekend for them to put it together. They were going to build the computer together.