My hand to god, this was a transformative experience for me, because he was so … kind. Just utterly human and sweet and kind. I’ve been around plenty of famous musicians, but I have never had this experience, where someone so famous and so big was just another guy, asking me questions about my family and genuinely listening to the answers, having a two-way conversation. He was nice to me.

When he left that day, it dawned on me: Dave Brubeck was kind to me. Here is a man who stared down racism in the 1950s; club owners told him that only his white musicians were welcome, and he replied, to hell with you, you either take my whole band or you don’t get any of us. He stared down racism and racism blinked. This man is a giant. He is a hero, and a national treasure. And his music? My god, there has never been anything better. And he was kind to me.

And that’s when I decided, damnit, if Dave Brubeck can be genuinely kind to me, a total stranger working at a Kentucky radio station, nobody has an excuse to not be kind. From that day forward, I stopped accepting attitude from people. I am worthy of basic human decency, and so are all the other people around me. You deserve it as well.

I will forever be grateful for that lesson that he taught me. I have thought about that day many, many times in the years since.

And then there is this remarkable thing. In the very coldest days of the cold war, Dave played a show for students in Moscow. Watch what happens when a young Russian man stands up and starts playing violin. Watch the sheer joy on the master’s face. Music can bridge any divide.

Now, I’m off to the basement to put on some records. Thank you for everything, Mr. Brubeck.

I think you can. When I put a Vera Lynn or a Benny Goodman record on my turntable, I find myself wistful for a period of American history that probably never really existed, but one that to my mind, feels innocent and wide-eyed and filled with possibility and very, very real. It was pre-war and post-war at the same time, idealistic men and women standing up to some outside evil and through the sheer force of their moxy and their belief in one another and the cause that united them, they triumphed over that evil. They shut it down. It was no longer a threat to the good people of the world.

As a people, we saw a very bad thing looming on the horizon. As a people, we fought back, and made the necessary sacrifices, and stopped that Very Bad Thing from being something that our children and our grandchildren would have to live with.

With each passing day, I am becoming more and more pessimistic (which is not my nature, you should know), because there is another Very Bad Thing on the horizon – far worse, frankly, than any that we have encountered so far – and we are meeting it with indifference. And I am finding myself nostalgic for a time (imagined, perhaps) when the people of our country would unite and triumph over such an evil.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research has recently been studying the last ten years’ worth of climate data, comparing it with the various predictions about climate change. Long story, distilled down to one sentence: The worst, most alarming and disturbing predictions have been the ones that have been the most accurate. If we are all being honest with one another, politics aside, we are looking at a global increase of about eight degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

Eight degrees. That’s not much, right? That’s the difference between a comfortable afternoon and a slightly uncomfortable one. But let’s look at the real-world implications of that:

A conference in Melbourne next week featuring a who’s who of climate scientists will explore what warming of 4 degrees or more means, including for Australia. Apocalyptic is the only word for it, and understanding the implications is equally important for policymakers, business and the community. Keynote speaker Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute and climate adviser to the German Chancellor and to the EU, has said that in a 4-degree warmer world, the population “carrying capacity estimates [are] below 1 billion people.”

Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change in Britain, was quoted in The Scotsman ahead of the 2009 Copenhagen conference saying the consequences were “terrifying.”

“For humanity it’s a matter of life or death … we will not make all human beings extinct, as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4 degrees. If you have got a population of 9 billion by 2050 and you hit 4 degrees, 5 degrees or 6 degrees, you might have half a billion people surviving.”

That was from a report from July of last year. Back then, back in the good old days, we were worrying about a mere four to six degrees. Now, we’re looking at eight. In a timeframe that mirrors the prom and wedding plans of your grandchildren your and great-grandchildren. How are you feeling about all of this?

Do you have family or friends affected in one way or another by Hurricane Sandy? Get used to it, and get used to more of it. We have taken our Mother and screwed her in ways that she does not appreciate. Sandy is the tip of the melting iceberg.

I came across the last hour of “WALL-E” tonight on cable, a brilliant film from the characteristically brilliant people at Pixar. The movie made me cry like a baby at the end when we first saw it at the theater four years ago, primarily because I was there with my two small children, and I worried about how much of the film would turn out to be prophetic. On that afternoon, I didn’t have the right words to explain to my kids why their daddy was crying after watching a cartoon. Maybe some of these words help to fill in the gaps.

Chapter 1

Stacy is in the kitchen, putting away the groceries she has just purchased, when she hears the panicked cry of her child in the room down the hall: “Mommy, what happened to the lights?”

It takes her a moment to process this. Matthew is playing in his room, which has a huge window facing the front yard. It is three in the afternoon and sunny. The lights aren’t on in his room. What is he talking about?

She thinks all of these things simultaneously, while some autopilot part of her is still wondering how better to stack the cans in the pantry to make them all fit. Seconds later, Matthew cries out again, this time louder and more fearful.

“Mommy! Everything is dark! Mommy!”

There is a tone in his voice that trips the panic switch that all mothers have, and she drops the cans she has been juggling and runs down the hall to his room. She finds him sitting on the floor, comic books spread around him, one of them open in his lap. He is looking around with eyes wide open, but there is a haziness to them. His right arm is extended and he is moving it slowly, trying to find something to touch.

Stacy collapses to the floor next to him and he grabs her, pulls himself tight to her chest and begins howling.

“Mommy, I can’t see anything … mommy, everything is dark …”

Matthew is five years old.

*

At the same time this is happening, the Whithers family of Indianapolis is leaving the ball park after an afternoon baseball game. Twelve-year-old Duncan’s uniform is filthy from his (not at all necessary but fun) slide into second base in the fifth inning. His team emerged victorious, 5-4, and a celebration was in order.

Dean Whithers is turning the family car into a parking spot at the family’s favorite chili restaurant when he hears a gasp from the back seat. It is so pronounced and so unexpected, he taps the brakes a little bit too hard and the car lurches.

“What is it?” he says, turning around to face Duncan and his little brother, eight-year-old Dean Jr. Duncan’s look is one of confusion; Dean Jr.’s is one of terror.

“Daddy,” he says quietly, eyes wide open but not quite right, “Daddy, I can’t see anything. My eyes aren’t working.”

Carol Whithers hastily unbuckles and climbs into the back seat, perching herself between her boys. She reaches out to Dean Jr. and strokes his face.

“What do you mean, your eyes aren’t working, sweetie?” she asks. “What are you seeing?”

“I’m not seeing anything, mom,” he says, in a tone of voice that is beginning to fill with terror. “Everything is dark, mommy,” and he starts to sob uncontrollably.

Carol pulls her little one tight and runs her fingers through his hair, offering what consolations her confused and startled mind can come up with. Dean shuts off the ignition of the car, turns around, stares, and considers what to do next.

**

Meanwhile it is noon in San Francisco, and Mark Davis is dropping Tricia, 9, and Hadley, 2, off at the house of their mother and his ex-wife Alicia. He has just spent two wonderful days with his girls, going to an amusement park and two movies and cooking on the grill at his apartment. But now it is Sunday and he must return them to their other home, the much bigger one, the one with the huge back yard and the big-screen television and the house where mommy lives with her new boyfriend.

It is never a pleasant transaction, this transition, this hand-off, for Alicia has not forgiven Mark for the indiscretion that led to their divorce, and she probably never will. She answers the door and frames her body squarely, making it clear that he is not welcome to come inside. Tricia walks from the car slowly, not wanting her daddy to leave – it is harder for her, because she knows what has happened and why it happened, but he is her daddy and she will always love him, no matter what he has done. She is old enough to feel, deeply, how profoundly unfair it is that she cannot have both of her parents all of the time. She hates this. She carries the sadness of someone much, much older, and there are days when she thinks she will explode from it.

Hadley, on the other hand, is just tickled that her daddy is carrying her, and she knows that she has had a lot of fun today and she is happy today and now she sees her mommy and now she is even happier. She reaches out for her mommy, who takes her, and she hugs her with all her might.

“They’ll be ready for you Friday at 6,” Alicia says coldly. “I’ll have their swim clothes packed.”

Mark nods. Each week it is the same: He hopes that this is the week her anger has cooled, that they could perhaps begin the work of being friends, being civil. This is clearly not the week.

He is about to turn and walk back to his truck when it happens: Tricia’s head jerks suddenly, eyes wide with panic. Hadley slumps in her mother’s arms, and is a moment later howling in fear.

The parents react instinctively: Alicia scoops Hadley up higher in her arms, looks at her, asks her what is wrong. Mark rushes to Tricia’s side just as she collapses, her face white with terror.

Alicia takes her baby inside to attend to her. The doorway now vacant, Mark takes his oldest girl inside to sit with her on the couch and ask her what is wrong.

**

This is happening all over the world. It is not happening to every child, but it is happening to most of them. In rich countries and in poor ones. In the crowded streets of Tokyo and New York, in mud huts in Africa and igloos in Alaska, in boarding schools and military bases and shopping malls and orphanages.

The eyes of children are going dark, everywhere. This is happening right now.

Umm … well, that book doesn’t exist. It still doesn’t. Of course not, and stop being silly.

HOWEVER, there is now an e-book called “The Angel’s Kiss,” and it looks much like the book you see Amy Pond reading in that there picture. But unlike the book in the episode, this one contains no supernatural foreknowledge of things that are about to happen to you. It does not tell you what you are having for lunch tomorrow, or whether or not your Yorkshire pudding will be so tough that you will break your wrist trying to cut through it.

HOWEVER ONCE AGAIN, this e-book is a charming novella (so far, at least, I’ve only just started it) that serves as a prequel to the episode. Even better news is that it is written by Justin Richards, who has written some of the very best Who novels. So if you’re a fan of the show, this is well worth the few quid they are asking.

Bonus challenge: I dare you to read this book and NOT hear it in your head in the voice of Alex Kingston. You can’t do it! Nor should you want to.

Well, evidently the science in that volume was too heavy, and it indeed was a bit of a dry read. “Why We Get Fat” is his version of the “carbs are bad” story, aimed at a more popular audience and written in layman’s language. But having read both, I can tell you that the message is the same: carbohydrates are bad for us, and the science is there to back that up.

From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense. When you look at the grand timeline that is human history, and then you look at the period of time that encompasses modern agriculture, well … the latter is a tiny subset of the former. Most of our biological history has nothing to do with grains or corn or any view of starch and sugar as something that we ought to be eating. We ate the things that we caught/killed, and we ate the green leafy things and the berries and nuts that we could find.

But now, we are eating things that come from a box in the middle of a grocery store aisle, things that our grandparents would not recognize as food. (Thought experiment: Try to introduce your beloved great-grandmother to a Hot Pocket without withering scorn.) We are eating things that have brought incredible levels of obesity, disease and unhappiness. As Taubes points out, this modern “American diet” has led to something that has never happened before in human history: a situation in which a person can be simultaneously obese and malnourished.

We are eating the wrong things. That much is clear. Most of America is eating vast quantities of things that it should not be eating. It is mainlining fast food, cheap carbs, easy grease and starch and sugar in quantities beyond compare. We are not healthy. We are not eating healthily. We should be eating other things.

But what should we be eating? For the answer, I take us back to Taubes, who spells out the benefits and history of a meat-centric diet. He points us to the work of a German chemist Justus Liebig, who noted that the production of fat in the human body came not from the consumption of fat, but from the consumption of starches and sugars. He also refers us to the French physician Jean-Francois Dancel who, in a book published in 1844, claimed that he could cure obesity “without a single exception” if he could convince those within his care to exist “chiefly upon meat,” and only eat “a small quantity of other food.”

This may call to mind the name of Banting, one William Banting, a London undertaker who lost fifty pounds “when living on meat, fish, game, and no more than a few ounces of fruit or stale toast a day,” the same Banting whose “Letter on Corpulence” would, two centuries later, become the template for the modern low-carb movement. His last name would become a synonym for losing weight by focusing one’s diet on meat.

Slice it and dice it any way you like, but the truth remains the same and it is inescapable: Our modern diet is killing us. We, as human beings, need to step away from the grain-based diet and move back to our more natural, meat-centric diet.

And here’s where the problem comes in. We have millions upon millions of people on our planet, and feeding each of them a meat-based diet is simply not sustainable. Even our factory farms, those grotesque machines that bring life in on one end and bring blood and sustenance out on the other, they are not enough, they cannot feed us indefinitely without ruining the soil that we live on (and our conscious, with each bite). It simply doesn’t scale.

In the short term, agriculture has been a blessing. We have been able to deliver cheap calories to millions of people, and sustain life in ways that would not have been imaginable to our ancestors. (Just picture your great-great-great … great-grandfather, bedding down at night in his cave, trying to comprehend an Extra Value Meal.) We have fed many more people than we would have a millenia ago.

But we have not fed them well. We have fed them foods that have been cheap and calorie-rich but nutrient-deficient, and the result has been a populace whose waist sizes swell by the day. We face a generation that will have a shorter lifespan than that of its parents.

And this is only to speak of the first world. In the world as a whole, overpopulation is becoming a tsunami on the horizon that none of us can afford to ignore. Consider this, from Worldometers:

A tremendous change occurred with the industrial revolution: whereas it had taken all of human history until around 1800 for world population to reach one billion, the second billion was achieved in only 130 years (1930), the third billion in less than 30 years (1959), the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), and the fifth billion in only 13 years (1987). During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.

All of this points to a problem, one in search of a solution. So far, agriculture has been the solution that we have chosen to use, but as the “American diet” and its very American ailments have shown, this is not the answer. There must be some other way to feed all of these inhabitants of this world that we do so love.

Fortunately, an answer has been given to us, and it came to us this week from a most unlikely source: not a science laboratory or a think-tank or a newsletter from a nutritionist, but a political campaign. Specifically, one of the two candidates for the President of the United States of America hinted at the answer that could save us all.

In a hidden-camera video, recorded by a journalist from Mother Jones magazine, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made it clear that there are certain portions of the population that have more value than others:

Well, there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement and government should give it to them … so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Mr. Romney has done us all a favor here by stating explicitly, that which we all believed but were too scared to say out loud: Some people are more important than others. Perhaps we all were created as equals in the eyes of Our Creator, but some are clearly more equal than others, and many of them just stopped trying a long time ago. And it’s not our job to worry about “those people.”

He probably didn’t realize it when he said it, but in this speech, Mr. Romney gave us the key to solving our global nutrition pandemic, as well as the overpopulation menace that looms in the coming years.

Here are two things that we can take away from all that we have discussed so far:

1. People are not getting the proper diet; they are eating too many starchy grains, and not enough meat-based protein.

2. There is an alarming number of people – 47 percent! – who are acting as scavengers on society, not doing their part, waiting around for food and health care to be handed to them.

It’s inevitable, isn’t it? No. 1 comes down to hard science; there is no arguing with it. And given the fact that the current presidential race is neck-and-neck, it is clear that almost half of the United States agrees with No. 2.

Which leads us to this clear outcome: In order to ameliorate both of these problems, we need to turn to the least productive members of society, those 47 percent who take more than they give, and call upon (require?) them to become protein sources for the rest of society.

I know, it sounds barbaric. But listen, here is the good news: We don’t need 47 percent! If we only took 10 percent of the “bottom-dwellers,” those who took far more than they gave back, we’d be able to shut down all of the factory farms in operation today! It makes economic sense, too, because we don’t have to build new farms and new pens; these people are already living in their cramped apartments and eating their corn-enriched convenience foods. We don’t need to bind them with metal walls on four sides; they’re already sedentary, of their own free will. The carbon footprint will be negligible, compared to a cow or a pig. The run-off from the asphalt factories that we raise them in will be nothing more than a new generation of servants, ready to help the other 90/53 percent continue to innovate, and make jobs, and make the world a better place in which to live. It’s a small price to pay, isn’t it?

Plus, as an industry, the abattoir has continued to innovate just as all other forward-thinking industries have. As the hospice people like to tell you in their commercials in the middle of “Jeopardy,” “the end of life is a part of life.” That’s right! For those 10 percent, it’s a normal life, business as usual. Just show up on the appointed birthday, and sign the papers to do your part for the betterment of all of your peers. It probably won’t hurt at all.

And here’s some more good news: If we do this on a global scale, few – if any – of the ten percent will be Americans!

But there are crackers, and then there are Triscuits. It’s a shame, really, to mention the two in the same sentence, because they are worlds apart. Saying “crackers” and “Triscuits” with some sort of implied equivalency is like talking about prime rib and cat food as equals, simply because both are meat-based and are excellent sources of protein.

Triscuits are awesome, and in this brief photo essay, I will demonstrate this using science. You cannot argue with science. It is empirical, as is the following collection of photos and observations.

Here are Triscuits, in their natural habitat (box):

Someone less properly trained in the scientific and artistic disciplines might miss this, but look closely at the “dots” over the two “i”s in the name. They are the exact same shape as the cracker itself. That is, square. This rabbit hole goes deep, and I pray that you’re equal to the journey.

Here are four Triscuits, on a plate.

Not much to say here. Like an autumn sunset or the laugh of a child, some things simply speak for themselves.

Let’s take that box-cover “serving suggestion” literally and put some cheese on the aforementioned plated Triscuits:

Lovely! Here we have an extra-sharp Vermont white cheddar. None of that “cheese food” crap for these Triscuits. No! A magnificent palette demands the proper paints! But let’s take it one step further … atop these piles of starch, salt and fat, let us now add the following:

My friends, does life get more lovely? We have added seared flank steak, seasoned with coarse sea salt and sliced on a bias, with a few paper-thin shavings of cherry tomato. The weight and the heat of the steak melts the cheese ever-so-slightly. Again, my point in all of this – and you can’t argue with science – is that it’s not the steak that is making the Triscuits better. It is the Triscuits that are making the steak better.

So far, we have encountered the obvious. Triscuits are salty, so they lend themselves to savory toppings and accoutrements. But stretch your thinking, and you’ll find that they work just as well for sweet delights. Have you ever had banana on a Triscuit? No? Just look and see how delicious this looks:

YUM!

Now, let’s take a pause from the very basics, back up a step or two, and enter the realm of the theoretical. Please consider this book, and its implications for the times that we all live in:

This is a brand-new translation of “Roadside Picnic,” a legendary masterpiece of Soviet science fiction written in 1972 by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Among other things, it was the inspiration for the film “Stalker” by Andrei Tarkovsky (also known for “Solaris” and “Andrei Rublev”). The story concerns the aftermath of a brief alien visit to the planet Earth, an aftermath which leaves a number of poisonous “Zones” across the globe, Zones that are perilous to enter but now contain objects imbued with near-magical properties. A black market immediately springs up to facilitate the trade of these objects – mundane things that suddenly possess miraculous features, such as perpetual motion – and the story focuses on the “stalkers,” men who risk their lives to go into the Zones to retrieve and later sell those items.

“Roadside Picnic” has become one of the iconic novels of the sci-fi genre, universally respected for not only its bleak tone and unflinching portrayal of the lengths that people will go to provide for themselves and the ones they love, but also for its view on the intense insecurity and loneliness that human beings often encounter when faced with something that is bigger than them – aliens? mortality? God? – something that brings possible salvation but also inescapable confusion and, at times, terror. It is a book about what it means to feel alone in a universe that is impossibly big.

Now, consider this:

Look at that sumbitch now! Existential dread much?

Oh, but it’s not just literature that benefits from Triscuit-based juxtaposition. Here we have “Valtari,” the latest CD from the ambient rock band Sigur Ros:

It’s really great! Put on the headphones or lay down on the floor with your head squarely between the speakers, and you can almost feel your body slowly lift up off the ground, the sinusoidal waves of ooommmmm and eeeaaahhhh and vvvvvvv washing over your essence like fingertips of angels, gently fanning you skyward.

And then, this happens:

… and the Klieg lights suddenly turn themselves on all around you and you are in the center of a massive porcelain theater, a million glistening cherubs smiling upon you as they hover just slightly above the ground, and all you can hear is a low and rumbling baying sound, like every trumpet in the world beginning to sing out all at once, singing out your name, with an inflection more beautiful than anything you’ve ever heard, a still, small susurrus that is whispering to you, only to you.

It’s exactly like that. Really.

So, science has demonstrated that Triscuits are awesome. No room for debate here. Saltines are good. Goldfish crackers are whimsical and cheeky and come with their own delights. Club crackers rule, melba toast is fun with cocktails, and I still don’t know whether I think Chicken in a Biskit is awesome or gross. Time will tell.

All these crackers are yours, except Triscuits. Attempt no landing there. And for the love of God, don’t ever attempt this:

It’s a Triscuit on a Triscuit, and it hurts my eyes just to look at it, for all of its meta-recursive horror. Please, one Triscuit at a time, people, and try not to let them touch one another.

(Full disclosure: I have no business relationship with the Triscuit. However, if you’re an intrepid marketing executive for Nabisco, I’ll just leave this lying here.)

I felt the same way watching both of the first two Nolan Batman films. For me, they were miserable, unpleasant experiences to sit through – they were focused on the kinds of things that actual villains and terrorists do. Come down from Asgard to steal some magical artifact or whatever? That’s fun. Blow up a boat filled with mothers and fathers and children? Point a gun at the head of a child? That’s not fun. That’s the kind of shit that people sometimes actually do.

I remember having that feeling for the first time with the Frank Miller book, which I read as a teenager. I knew it was revolutionary as comics/graphic novels/sequential art/whatever goes, but it wasn’t any fun, and up to that point I had equated comic books with fun. But everything is all Dark now. Batman in particular.

This thing, this thing is breaking my heart in ways I haven’t had it broken before, because of the kids involved, and I’ve got little kids and I see everything through that lens. Imagine that you’re 10 or 11, and your mom and dad are not only going to let you stay up and go out for a midnight movie, but you’re going to get dressed up like a superhero and see this amazing movie (one that you probably shouldn’t be seeing anyway because it’s too grownup, but mom and dad are awesome and they’re bending the rules because of how special this is) and this is the EVENT OF THE SUMMER for you and you’ve been counting down the days to it for weeks. And then this happens, and the best thing in the world becomes the worst thing in the world. What does that do to a kid? In some other configuration, with other specifics and details and taking place fifteen years prior, it turns a happy kid into an angry and lonely kid, and angry and lonely kids sometimes grow up and do awful things.

Guns aren’t the issue. Well-balanced folks have a variety of guns for a variety of reasons. I don’t own any, but that’s just because I don’t like them. But my neighbor does; he’s a Vietnam veteran who would never lift a finger against anyone that wasn’t actively trying to hurt him. If you want to hurt 10-year-old kids and their parents during movie night, you’ll find a way, and the gun isn’t the issue. The issue is, why do you want to hurt people you don’t know? What does that do for you? What is the net benefit for you, to hurt people you don’t know?

For me, I have to believe that it is rooted in childhood, in those first few experiences of what the world is and what we can expect from it. All of the monsters that the human race has so far produced have operated under the delusion that they were wronged, that something is broken or unjust or unfair and must be fixed by WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY, that you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Whatever. Fuck those people.

If you have young people in your care or sphere of influence, please do all you can do to let them know that they are loved, they are important, they are good and valuable the way they are, and, crucially, so are other people, every one of them.

“Who’s there?”

“Stephen.”

“Stephen who?”

“Stephen Davidson? From the neighborhood association? Just wanted to remind you that we’re having a meeting tomorrow night at 7, at the community center. Among other things, we’ll be discussing the mailbox issue. Do you think you could either bring a covered side dish, or a couple of two-liters? That would be great. Doreen and a couple of her friends are getting there at a quarter-till to start setting up food, so if you want to arrive early, that’s no problem. Thanks, and look forward to seeing you there!”

Opportunity cost. Opportunities lost.

I’m thinking about this tonight because my wife just texted me from the Jefferson Mall, where she’s hanging out with our oldest child, our ten-year-old, getting some one-on-one mother-son time (crucial and necessary for the happiness of both parties) and picking up some stuff for the middle child’s birthday party this weekend. She just texted me from the big “Eurobungy” thingie in the center of the mall, that giant contraption of steel beams and rubber bands that lets kids fly up into the air, delirious with happiness, for the low low price of seven bucks for a couple of minutes.

We’ve spent untold hours and dollars at “the jumpy,” as it’s known in our family’s vernacular. The aforementioned birthday girl absolutely loves it, and the littlest one is pining for his chance to take on the thing, still too small to meet the minimum height requirement. We know our way around the Eurobungy, and have spent plenty of time helping the kids get properly airborne, one, two, three, JUMP!

Here’s what my wife just texted me: “He says he doesn’t want to do it anymore.”

He’s at that awful, awkward transitional stage from boy to young man. His body is just slightly too big for The Jumpy to be any fun, but his brain still tells him that it is the most awesome thing ever. The cognitive dissonance is starting to rear its ugly head, and very soon, my sweet boy will start to think that The Jumpy is stupid and is only for little kids.

And here’s why I’m sad and broken-hearted about this. It’s not because he’s growing up; I’m smart enough to realize that him growing up is beautiful and magical, and although it hurts, it’s necessary. I’m sad because for every time we walked through the mall and he got to go up on The Jumpy, there were probably three or four times where I said “No,” for no good reason. No reason other than that I was tired, or grumpy, or ready to go home, or was feeling stingy about the stupid damned seven dollars and what a waste is that and why do they have to charge so much for a kid’s ride?

There’s your opportunity cost, right there. Paulo Coelho said, “One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.”

Miles, I am so sorry I said no to you, for no good reason, on this little thing you wanted to do. And now you don’t want it anymore. There are a finite number of days in a young man’s life in which The Jumpy is exciting, and I denied you many of them. You now want other things instead, but those particular opportunities are lost, and I am sorry I denied you those brief, giggly, five minutes of happiness. You will find other things that also delight you, and I’ll do a better job of helping you enjoy the moment. I promise.

Thank you for everything you are teaching me.

I’m pretty sure that there have already been masters or doctoral theses written about this one episode; in a very oblique way, it reminds me of Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” in that you can mine it for meanings almost indefinitely, and successfully find them, even if they weren’t actually in the mind of the writer at the time of its creation.

But for me, I think there’s a simple lesson to be learned from this story, and so I don’t spoil anyone who hasn’t yet watched it, I’ll include it inside the fold.

Here it is in a nutshell, for me: When the nice and genuine and loving guys leave the room, all hell breaks loose, either physically or emotionally. When the aggressive and rude guy who only cares about outward appearances leaves the room, everybody begins to enjoy themselves and their lives.

I think reality bears that out.