It’s not fair you get a plus 10 when she’s around!

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by Jeremy.
Categories: Blog.

I think that one of the best things about having a young mind in your living vicinity is that you get a chance to help mold (corrupt) them into these weird beings we called “Adults”. During their stay under your tutelage they’ll often show you a distilled reflection of certain parts of your persona that you’ve probably thought long gone, but suddenly pop their head out to say “hi” to you when you least suspect it.

El Penguino “Clap clap, routinely holds up the personality mirror to my face and I get quite a chuckle at the image I see there. It’s both nostalgic and strange.

One of these traits that has seemingly been passed down from myself to him, is what I like to call the “Cato effect”.

“cato”, for those not well versed in the marvelous Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies, was Inspector Clouseau’s Asian man servant who was tasked to attack the Inspector at all times, the idea being that it would keep the inspector “sharp”.

I was that Cato.

When my brother would come home from school, he’d often have to tread ever so carefully into the house because his younger sibling (me) would be hiding somewhere to engage him in some hand to hand tom foolery.

This of course would bleed over into any commercial breaks, where the show would stop and our eyes would dart to each other and then to any weapons that might be handy.

Soon kung fu noises would be shouted, weapons brandished, and more times than I’d like to think I’d end up breaking something in the house.

It was non stop.

I’ve grown more mature (somewhat). I’ve buried most of my physical aggression when I received my diploma at college (sad that the reality of not being able to fight off cults of Ninjas hitting me hard), and THOUGHT that, that sort of roughhousing would never really be present in my life except for occasional reunions with the family.

Then there is El.

Every moment we are around each other is cushioned with acute paranoia. We are constantly gauging whether or not one of us is going to strike, where, how hard, and of course how to retaliate.

I don’t remember anything in particular that would make him take up the mantle of my youth. Maybe it’s the karmic balance being restored, the reaping and sowing of my own hidden ambushes.

He’s gotten really good too, though I’ve bluffed him into thinking that I can destroy him at any moment “if I tried”.

And still nothing makes me smile quite like the times where I throw the kid on his butt or twist his arm into a unforgiving pretzel.

In fact the other day he came at me fairly rapidly, I parried, spinning him around into an arm bar before clubbing him to the floor in front of Princess Hotcakes.

His response “It’s not fair! When she is around you get like Plus 10!”

Indeed. A lady will do that to a guy. But she won’t protect me from the ever lurking shadow of my very own Cato. My house ninja that perpetual stalks me from every corner, increasingly getting better daily until one day he has ME hog tied on the ground telling him the same thing about his strength in proximity to his gal.

Someday…but not today, today I….you hear that? Oh crap I think he’s hiding behind my book case, gotta go.

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