Dad's on the Couch Archive

7/19

Priorities.

As I continue that inexorable journey towards what might be referred to, however inaccurately, responsible maturity, I find that it’s more important than ever to hold on to a childlike sense of what’s really important in life. My boys, of course, have that whole "well obviously we posses the innate ability to cast aside the chaff of irrelevancy and focus solely on what really matters" thing going on.

Practically speaking, what this means is that my younger boy will neglect wiping himself after a visit to the bathroom because he realizes that it’s critically important to rush back outdoors lest he miss even a few precious seconds of, well, being outdoors. Now that’s having your priorities straight.

So, in that very same spirit, I’m glad to report that not only did our little family jaunt to the City of Brotherly Love go off without a hitch, but we focused all our attention on the fun goofy stuff in the science museums and learned not a single new thing about our Great Republic. Not one. (Well, all right, that’s not actually true. During our tour of Independence Hall I learned that U.S. senators weren’t directly elected by the people until 1913; before that they were appointed by their respective state legislatures. Who knew? And, as long as I’ve gone to the trouble to use a pair of parentheses, I should also admit that, when quizzed by our tour guide, I found that I had the number of constitutional amendments wrong; it seems that there are twenty seven, not twenty six. As it turned out, however, I didn’t have to worry much about my little mental faux pas as I was lucky enough to be standing next to an older gentleman who, without hesitation, called out "sixty!". I’m not sure which I enjoyed more, his bright green foam and plastic mesh cap that read "Gone Fishn", or the impenetrable backwoods drawl in which he ventured his guess. Either way, I think it’s nice that God populates the planet with just enough of those sort of folks to keep my self-esteem reasonably intact. Ooops, did I say that out loud?)

But I digress. If I still remember it right, the point of all this incoherent rambling was that despite the innumerable distractions offered by Philidelphia we managed to stay focused on a few fun gift shop goodies that are as cool as they are sublimely weird. The first is a conceptual oxymoron: an Einstein Action Figure. I would imagine the TV ad goes something like: "That’s right kids, now you can pretend to think! Thrill as he sits around wearing brown sweaters! Relativity has never been so hugable!"

Even better is the weirdly lame Park Ranger Adventure figure. Although she’s impeccably dressed in olive-drab pants and sports a rigid plastic hat, I suspect that most of her adventures would consist of picking up gum wrappers and telling tourists not to feed the bears.
I did also have a completely unrelated but historically important doll revelation: while at the Independence Seaport Museum I discovered that Rosie the Riveter of WWII fame was actually Jennifer Tilly. And now she lives on as a bobble-head doll. Weird.

And finally, such a collection wouldn’t be complete without an action figure of history’s most egregiously shameless self-promoter: Benjamin Ubiquitous Franklin.

Hey kids! With the Ben Franklin Action Figure you can pretend to make up endless bon mots and trite sayings! Don’t forget to involve yourself in
innumerable public undertakings… make sure everyone knows that you invented everything… and have fun while dispensing manufactured homespun, humble wisdom! (In stores now, ego not included.)

Anyway, I’m just proud of myself and the boys for keeping our priorities
straight and staying the course on this vacation. Despite being tempted by all
the rich historical heritage that Philadelphia has to offer, we instead reached
for the brass ring of the sublime, and, by god, we ended up with a fistful of
fun that is as entirely unproductive as it is satisfying. Or something
like that.