The Boy’s been watching me lately. For the first few weeks, a little over a month or so, he pretty much ignored me. Paid more attention to the ceiling fan actually. But lately I think I’ve caught up to the fan because now when I cross the room his eyes follow me.
He seems to be wondering what exactly it is I do. He knows perfectly well what The Wife’s purpose is — he eyes the buttons on her blouse and licks his chops at the first sign of hunger. But while I can provide him with a mean version of Kermit the Frog singing Old Man River, he doesn’t exactly see me dragging fresh kill through the door - unless you count the occasional package of organic, precooked sausage from the bodega. He might have seen me sign for a package once that turned out to be a dinosaur shirt for him, but I can't be sure he wasn’t eyeing the begonia by the door. I even missed a great opportunity to impress him this weekend when I was oiling our deck furniture. I should have put him out there with me, far enough away to avoid the toxic fumes but near enough for him to hear me grunt and sigh with all that hard work.
I finally decided to explain to him that I’m a writer and a lot of my work is done on spec which is short for speculative which means I do work for potential money but not real money. I tried to convince him that potential money is one step above Monopoly money because while Monopoly money may be colorful and tangible, it really can’t be traded in for real money. Unfortunately, The Boy considers potential money to be quite a few steps below Monopoly money for those exact same reasons — it’s colorful and tangible and can even be used to wipe spit-up in a pinch.
I went on to explain the idea of potential earnings with the classic analogy of the rubber band that Mr. Lawrence, my ninth grade physics teacher, used. When the rubber band is stretched taught there is potential energy stored in that rubber band; when the rubber band is released, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy which can be used to put someone’s eye out. Kinetic energy is energy of motion I told him. My career, for example, is stretched nice and tight like a rubber band it’s chock full of potential energy but like that taut rubber band it ain’t going anywhere at the moment. One of these days, though, watch out! The world will have to don protective eyewear.
When I finished explaining all this to Enrico his eyes went to The Wife's breasts, and I had to assume he was thinking, “Let's turn those into some kinetic energy.” Then he simultaneously sneezed and filled his diaper – an impressive display of kinetic energy I must say. But whether it can earn us a paycheck remains to be seen.
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