I am the mother of four and grandmother of six and I am simply fed up with the community in general.  With all the crooked politicians in the world, it is no wonder that kids are killing kids and drugs are running rampant through the streets.  The way some parents teach their kids, it is also no wonder that America is losing faith in the sugar-hoarding delinquents who litter our neighborhoods with vulgarity and roller boarding.  I have to admit that I am losing faith in the future of this country, especially when this so-called future hides themselves behind long hair and apathy.

My husband Paul doesn’t agree with me though.  He always says, “Diane, if you don’t give kids a chance, then their fear of the elderly will only continue to grow stronger.”  There was a time when Paul would only talk about the new kids out of college and how smarter they are now then they were back in his day; and also how they should all be getting closer to inventing a Watchie Talkie.  A Watchie Talkie™ is a TV small enough to fit on your watch and is used to communicate with other Walkie Talkie owners at certain distances.  I don’t quite understand the obsession, but I know that the day he gets his Watchie Talkie is the day he will finally be happy.

Every time I ask where this TV watch idea came from, he always tells me to ask Kevin Stooler.  Kevin Stooler was Paul’s childhood idol.  He and his wife lived a few blocks down the street from Paul.  I have never met the man, but Paul swears that he could do the most amazing things.  For instance, Paul said that he was the creative mind behind some of the ideas for a few of the James Bond movie gadgets; he accidentally invented muffins; he had a prosthetic thumb that could be detached from his hand by simply pulling on it; he became a millionaire after he invented the oval toilet seat with the convenience gap in the front; and finally (and I don’t know if I believe this one) Paul swears up and down that on several occasions, he saw Mr. Stooler spread his arms and fly off of his bedroom window. 

Paul idolized Mr. Stooler all through Junior High and High School, until one day the local police came and arrested him for stealing the neighbor’s mail.  Paul said that when the authorities entered the Stooler home, they found a suitcase labeled “2015 Currency” full of approximately half a million black jelly beans as well as numerous toxic liquids simmering in Bunsen burners. 

Paul claimed that Mr. Stooler was the most fun adult he knew and that he didn’t understand why he needed to be taken away.  He repeatedly told his parents that Mr. Stooler was a generally happy person and he saw nothing wrong with his way of doing things.  However, during Mr. Stooler’s trial, Paul admitted to the judge that Mr. Stooler would make Paul talk into his watch whenever he spoke to him.  He also admitted that Mr. Stooler would take him to eat at Godfather’s Pizza and continually pressure him to try and eat his own weight in pizza.  Apparently back in those days, this behavior was enough to get a man 3 years in the county jail.  After the trial was over, the bailiff took Mr. Stooler back to his cell and that was the last time Paul ever saw him.

Sometimes when Paul talks about that great day when Watchie Talkies exit beta testing and become available to the public, I get caught in the futuristic fantasy of it all.  I once told Paul it would be great to get two of them so that I could talk to him whenever I wanted to.  He then became frustrated, almost to the point of yelling, and gave me a big lecture on how money doesn’t grow on trees and how I need to start paying better attention to the money I am wasting with my nonsensical purchases.  When I asked for an example of these ludicrous purchases I had been making, he promptly went to the cupboard and pulled out four Cream of Chicken soup cans and began telling me how four was way too much chicken cream and how three would have been just fine.  Rather than continue the argument, I decided to change the subject to what he wanted for dinner and we moved on.

I can’t wait for that day when this watch TV phone actually is available to purchase.  That would be some Father’s Day morning watching him come down the stairs in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes and smiling at the sight of his gifts under the Father’s Day lilac bush.  That will be a day of endless satisfaction, where the decades-long quest for a Watchie Talkie will end in complete success and all will be right with the world.