Sleeper Hold

It has not quite reached that point where, upon entry to my home, I, like Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, have to call out not to be attacked. For those of you in the know, Clouseau, as played by Peter Sellers, has, in an effort to hone his fighting skills, instructed his Asian houseboy, Cato, to attack him without warning. What results is Cato attacking him once all threat of doing so has evaporated and with hilarious results. In later films what eventually happens is that Clouseau ends up having a terrible day and calls out to Cato not to attack him despite his previous instructions to ignore such instructions. And of course, Cato attacks him. Good stuff.







Anyway, my home has been compared to a pirate camp, a wild West saloon and, appropriately enough, something like a WWF training school. I was very bitter that, when my sister was living in Mexico, she was unable to source us some Lucha Libre wrestling masks.

There is lots of 'wrasslin' going on round here- well, for a short while recently there hasn't been. After suffering grievous injury (torn shoulder tendon) in a dad and lad soccer match I had to call a halt to such activities for a while. But I'm back now though still not in top form. The living room has been recently cleared of the foosball table and so we could reinitiate son v. dad grudge matches.


I've written before in this blog that Wrestling is the key to good fathering. It, among other things, is a lot of fun and there is a lot of laughing. Also, it provides my boys with real and meaningful correction to super hero and video game fantasies about being all powerful. The key to a successful wrestling strategy is to stop while it is still fun and good natured or, as my wise father always says, "Quit While The Fun's Good." My middle son regularly complains that I always quit while the fun's good and I should instead quit when the fun's bad. But he is 9, a misanthrope and not to be trusted in such matters; I'll follow my dad's rule here.




So, wrestling is back on at the home and we are all happy with that. Even my oldest, who is getting too old and cool to do such things, upon his return from camp this weekend casually skulked by as the 9 year old and I were throwing it down. He got dragged into it and, despite minor protests was laughing as he was pinned. "Did you hear my back crack?" He asked proudly.


My youngest (almost 7) known universally as "The Tank" is the resident madman though. As described in the previously mentioned post he is the one who cracked one of my ribs by leaping knee first off a piece of furniture and into my side shouting, "Here I come to save the day!" Our bedtime routine has become a last ditch wrestling session. Some would feel that I'm 'working him up' but seriously the dude has so much energy I find it the best way to tire him out and burn off at least a little of his mania. I also have to confess to simply loving it - it's so fun and we're both laughing our guts out most of the time.






He killed me last night though when I uttered the usual wrap-up phrase to "Quite While The Fun's Good." He surprisingly gave his usual reply when I tell him to turn off the Wii, "Just a second, I have to beat this level first." Classic. I laughed so hard but then replied that this was the boss level and he would never beat it. And I put him down.

SNIP N' GO

The last time she saw her husband, he was “stepping out for a smoke”. Two weeks later, Sandra Irving, 39, now knows that her husband had more than tobacco on his mind. The two had been sitting in the waiting area of an outpatient vasectomy clinic, Snip N’ Go, in a strip mall near their suburban home in Oshawa , ON, when Jack Burrows, 40, announced that he was going to buy some cigarettes and have a smoke outside while he waited. The time is estimated at being roughly 1 pm.

“I’ve been trying to get him to quit for years,” Ms. Irving said, “So I wasn’t happy about it. I told him to hurry up, I think.”

Mr. Burrows’ appointment was in fact scheduled for 1:15. His failure to return was not immediately remarked upon as his name was not called for his procedure until 2 pm. Ms. Irving had failed to notice his absence as she was engrossed in a back issue of House and Home.

“It was the Clutter Buster issue,” Ms. Irving explained, “So I didn’t notice right away. When they called his name I thought he’d come in but there was no sign of him. I stepped outside and he wasn’t there. I walked over to the little convenience store just down the way and he wasn’t there either. I was on my way back when I noticed the minivan was gone.”

The couple’s blue Astro minivan was no longer parked in the parking lot. Resting in the spot where it had been were the child booster seat and the infant car seat which had previously been secured in the van. Through evidence pieced together from security cameras at the mall, it appears that Mr. Burrows did indeed buy his cigarettes and at the same time he appeared to pick up a men’s magazine, Boyo. He then stepped outside and smoked a cigarette and flipped through the magazine. Suddenly, he threw down the cigarette, stuffed the magazine into his back pocket and strode off. Cameras lost sight of him briefly but he is later seen filling up the minivan in a gas station a few kilometres down the road.

His trail goes cold until two days later when news footage of a WWE wrestling match tailgate party in Buffalo NY shows a crowd of men and boys dancing around the smoking ruins of what appears to be the remnant of a burned-out minivan in the stadium parking lot. One of the shirtless men has his face painted crimson and blue and bears a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Burrows. Subsequent investigation has revealed the minivan to be the one Mr. Burrows left in but there is no further sign of him.

“If he was going to leave why did he have to set the minivan on fire?” Ms. Irving asked. “Shrek 2 was still in the DVD player and that’s the kids’ favourite. They’re going to be devastated.”

I have fallen behind on my Pop Culture posts given the holiday season. In place of new material, and in the spirit of holiday leftovers, I offer the above, a piece published in a previous blog of mine, Whiskerrub, that touches on fatherhood in a personal way. Enjoy. A new piece should be posted soon.