Handcuffs
“Hi, dad!”
It was a fairly cheerful 9 year old boy ‘Hi, dad.’ Different from ‘hi, dad, I’m sad’, or ‘I just blew up something that you liked’. So I wasn’t really all that concerned right off the bat.
“Hey, buddy. What’s goin’ on?”
“Oh, nothin’.”
“Nothin’?”
“Yea, nothin’.”
“Oh.”
“Um, dad?”
“Yes, son”
“Um, do you know where the key to my handcuffs is?”
My wife’s brother, Harvey, gave him these handcuffs for his birthday. Now Harvey’s not a bad guy. A little over zealous maybe. He’s been a policeman for a while now, and although he’s a decent guy, he doesn’t have any kids of his own. Last year he shows up at my son’s 9th birthday party with handcuffs for a present. Real handcuffs. Of course the 9 year old thought this was the coolest thing ever, and Harvey tried to reassure me by giving me a couple of extra keys, ‘just in case.’ And of course I put them in a safe place in case I ever needed to use them. A place so safe that I don’t even remember where it is. Next time I’m throwing the important stuff right in the backyard. At least I’ll remember where it is when I run over it with the mower every now and then.
“Uh, gee, son, I’d have to get up and look. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason.”
“No reason?”
Sounded more like a pre-launch rumble ‘no reason.’ Gentleman start your engines ‘No reason.’
“No, no reason.”
“You haven’t locked somebody’s hands together with those things, have you? Somebody like your little sister?”
“Jessh, dad. No! Nothing like that. I mean you told me never to do that again. And besides I think she rubbed her wrists a lot after they came off just to get more sympathy from you. I mean I told her the more she tried to get out the worse it would hurt!”
“OK, OK. We don’t have to revisit that nightmare again. I still can’t look that fireman in the eye when I see him at the coffee shop.”
“So, dad?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know of any other way to get the handcuffs open?”
“Son, I’m trying to have an open mind here, but I’m getting queasy. Why do you need to get the handcuffs open?”
“Because I want to.”
Ever seen that little rocker thing on top of a pressure cooker start to swing back and forth as steam starts to escape?
“I know you want to. I’m asking WHY do you want to.”
“Well, I think it would be a good idea.”
I’ve never seen one of those things come flying off a pressure cooker but I can picture it perfectly right now. It’s actually embedded about an inch deep in the ceiling plaster.
“OK-WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON WITH THE HANDCUFFS? IS THERE IMMINENT DANGER? TELL ME QUICK OR I’M GONNA START GETTING MAD!!!!”
Start getting mad? What a nice example we’re setting here, hm? Really teaching by example how to manage your fears.
“Well, old Mr. Sminks is kind of having a little trouble getting out of the house.”
“What?”
“Well, you know how the Sminks’ have a double door for the front door?”
“Ye-e-e-e-s?”
And you know how the two door handles are in the middle kind of next to each other?”
“Ye-e-e-e-s?”
“And you know how if you took the handcuffs and put one on each handle and then locked them that you wouldn’t really be able to open the doors from the inside very much?”
“Tell me you didn’t lock the Sminks’ front doors with the handcuffs.”
“What?”
“I said tell me you didn’t lock the Sminks front doors with the handcuffs.”
“Tell you that?”
“No, don’t tell me that. What the heck did you do?”
“What?”
“Are the handcuffs on the door right now?”
“Um, kind of.”
“KIND OF? KIND OF? WHAT DO YOU MEAN KIND OF?”
“Um, I mean, yea, they’re, um, kind of on the door right now. Mr. Sminks is kind of freaking out, too, or at least I think it’s Mr. Sminks. It actually sounds more like a wild animal we saw at the last field trip to the zoo. I think it was an animal from Tazmania or something like that who’s cage was too small. Remember the stampeding hippos in that movie Jumanji?”
For Pete’s sake. No time to waste now. But what to do? Go over to Sminks’ and try to calm him down from outside the door? Think now would be a good time to remind him that parking his old Chevy tight up against the back door not only keeps the bad guys out but makes getting out challenging as well? Where did I put those keys? Damn you, Harvey. If you ever have kids I’m gonna get you back big time. I can just imagine Sminks. Probably rattling and shoving those doors like a maniac. OK. I gotta go over and at least try to explain to old man Sminks what the situation is.
The rumble of the rattling doors can actually be heard as I open my front door. Man, he sounds mad. Real mad. I hope I can get there before he breaks down the doors. I’m sure that’s an easy grand or so to fix.
Rattling gets much louder as we approach. Curse words I haven’t heard since high school.
In a loud voice, “MR. SMINKS?”
More rattling. More words I’m sure my son is now cataloging for future use.
‘MR. SMINKS!! MR. SMINKS!!
Rattling suddenly stops. No answer, but a step in the right direction. At the moment the damage appears to be minimal. ‘Course I can’t see the claw marks on the inside.
“Mr. Sminks. It’s me, Tom, from next door.”
The handcuffs are there, all right. Locked and neatly loped over each door handle. A perfect fit.
“Mr. Sminks?”
“WHAT?!!”
Relief. He’s not maniacal, yet. Probably close, though.
“Um, heh, heh. Um, Mr. Sminks, um, are you all right?
“AM I ALRIGHT? AM I ALL RIGHT? NO I’M NOT ALL RIGHT! I CAN’T EVEN GET OUT OF MY OWN (expletive deleted) HOUSE!. WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?!!”
“Well, Mr. Sminks. Calm down. I can explain everything. You see my son, here, kind of put a pair of handcuffs on your front door earlier today and we’ve kind of, you know, misplaced the key for them, but…
“HE PUT HANDCUFFS ON MY DOOR?! KIND OF? KIND OF? ON MY DOOR?! FOR CRYIN’ OUT LOUD RIZZO, WHAT KIND OF KID ARE YOU RAISING THERE?”
You’d have expected the usual emotions here: the instinct to protect my honor as a parent, the defense of my progeny’s actions as being age related, and the deep desire to keep Sminks from killing both of us if he actually knocked down the doors. All of these would be reasonable. But when I heard the first distant wail of that siren, the only thing I felt was, well, resignation that the same fireman who showed up last time with the little sister incident would be driving that same oversized rescue vehicle again, wearing that same “Captain Fantastic to the Rescue” expression he’s worn ever since high school. I’m gonna get the lecture, again. And I’m definitely going to have to find a new place to have coffee.