Hey all, I thought you might enjoy a brief tale from my childhood.
Those of you with sons will, I think, particularly enjoy it.
I had fun writing it, I hope you have some fun reading it.
Growing up, my life seems to have been largely defined by one phrase. In every instance where I had made an unwise choice, every instance where I was asked "what were you thinking?" the only response that fit was "It seemed like a good idea at the time." This became something of a mantra for me. When I swung the cat around by its tail, it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I decided to throw a basketball around in the living room, it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I jumped out of a tree from fifteen feet up, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I only mention this because it has some bearing on the story I'm about to relate.
Now, when I was young, and truthfully, still to this day, I had something of an obsession with tools. I loved tools of any kind. I think I was fascinated with the potential that tools represented. I would walk around with wrenches or screwdrivers dreaming of things I could build with them. My particular favorite was the hammer. I loved the heft of it, its potential for both creation and destruction. I could imagine myself building a tree fort or a dog house one moment, and the next moment imagine the satisfying smash that a bottle would make if I were to bring the hammer down on it.
One day (as all good stories begin) I was walking around the house carrying the hammer. I imagine it was a rainy day, or I would have been stomping around outside. I was perhaps seven or eight and I hadn't really had any opportunities to actually use a hammer so I was really contemplating just what I could do with it. As I was trumping through the house I'd occasionally surreptitiously tap at a wall or bit of furniture, relishing the satisfying sound that only a hammer connecting with wood can make. At some point I wandered down into the basement, where all my father's tools were kept. I loved poking around into his toolboxes and drawers looking at his miscellaneous gadgets and tools. I was rummaging through one of his drawers when divine inspiration struck. There it was, the connection I had been searching for. There, in the musty rust covered metal drawer was a small package of nails. I don't think I had ever truly made the connection between a hammer and nails before. Sure, I knew that you used a hammer to pound nails, but somehow, finding the nails while holding the hammer drove it home in a way that just holding the hammer never had. Suddenly the possibilities were limitless. I could do anything with these tools!
Five minutes later finds me sneaking around the house like a huntsman stalking my first kill. I knew that it was important that nobody find me with the hammer and nails lest they be taken from me at the very moment of my triumph. The bookcase was a serious contender, as was the floor, but they just weren't quite right. This had to be something special. It had to be the right height, the right type of wood. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I knew that I'd recognize it when I saw it. Sneaking into the living room offered many possibilities there was the tv stand, the plant table, the antique hutch, so many rich woods. Then, scanning the room, it caught my gaze. There it was, the perfect piece of wood, that final piece of my three part puzzle. The coffee table. It was the perfect height for me, I could stand and get a good swing at the nail, or I could kneel down and gently tap it. A test tap revealed a perfect resonance, just the right timbre, a solid thunk sound, with just a hint of a snap sound at the upper edges of my hearing.
The decision was made, the nails were pulled out of my pocket and gently lined up one by one on the carpet next to me. I selected my instrument, a perfect, shining lance with which I would vastly improve the quality of the coffee table. I lined it up rigth in the center of the table. Gripping the hammer just below the head with my right hand I began to tap at the nail ever so softly. I slipped a couple of times, once hitting my thumb. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I couldn't give up now. This was the ultimate moment, the ape learning to use a rock to smash open a melon, the cave man hefting his spear for the first time. Slowly the nail sunk into the flesh of the table. A millimeter! A centimeter! Two! Three! There it was, standing like a spire in the morning sun a shining tower decrying my triumph. An obelisk announcing that I, Pharoah Chris had conquered the realm of coffee in the land of table. With this triumph I became emboldened, more spires were erected to my greatness. A forest, a city of gleaming nails, a testament to my mastery of the hammer.
It was during the construction of my final tower, the greatest of all, a spike five inches long weighing several ounces, that I heard that phrase that would become so common to my dealings, that familiar voice, that incredulous tone.
"What the hell are you doing!?"
There she stood, ablaze with furious glory, like some valkyrie, the protectress of the land of table come to end my mad reign. Even with my mighty hammer I couldn't withstand that gaze. I looked down at the floor, defeated, humbled by the fury of the mother goddess.
"I'm sorry." I said, hoping beyond hope for some redemption, some forgiveness.
"Why are you banging nails into the coffee table?" She said, her anger softening with a degree of bemusement.
It was then, at the moment of my defeat, at the moment of my tool using triumph that I learned to utter the phrase that I would say so many more times, for so many more reasons.
"I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time."
