The Escape Route

by Hero Jenkins

My wife was an athlete, and most athletes talk a lot of “SMACK”. I guess today “talking SMACK” is known as “trash talk”, but “SMACK” is what we called it back then.

Besides bestowing upon her the gift of trash talking, God also saw fit to arm her with two of the sharpest elbows I have ever seen or felt.

I'm not sure when it happened but at some point in this marriage she became emboldened. Armed with those freakishly sharp elbows she seemed to feel that she could get away with talking smack without there being any repercussions.

So that is the background or rather the foundation of what I am about to share with you. Because I told you all of that to tell you this. 

My sons read my last “letter to myself” when I talked about them slipping into bed on Saturday mornings and reminded me of something I had forgotten about. One of them said: “I don’t quite remember it the way you described it.”

With barely disguised laughter in his voice he reminded me that they didn’t always slip into the bed and cuddle. There was a time, when they were a little older, they responded to rescue their mom who was being tickled mercilessly as punishment for talking too much smack.

I’m guessing they were about nine and seven at the time. All my wife had to do was scream for help and she would have two evil munchkins coming to her rescue. It always started the same way, with her mouth writing a check that her butt couldn’t cash. She would make some smartass remark and I would tickle her. She would try to use those sharp elbows but I was too quick for her. Then she would scream for back-up and the moment she did they would come running into our room, leap onto the bed and go all WWE on me. 

Unfortunately for them, they were too little to win the battle outright because I could stack them and tickle them both with one hand while continuing to tickle their mom with the other. They would scream, but there was no one left to help them.

After repeatedly losing, those two evil munchkins changed tactics on me. They adopted a hit and run approach and more importantly they devised a diabolical plan to use my own house against me.

They called it “The Escape Route”.

There was a narrow hallway connecting the master bedroom to the rest of the house. On one side of the hallway was a storage area. There was a cabinet on the bottom with doors that opened low and then a wall mounted linen closet on top with doors that opened high. Their plan was to open the upper cabinet doors and leave the bottom cabinet doors shut. That meant that if they could make it to the darkened hallway they, being munchkins, could run beneath the open upper doors while any pursuer that was not a munchkin, namely me, would collide with them.

Diabolical... Right? Well I'm here to tell you that the plan worked.

One Saturday morning they set up their escape route and waited. I’m not sure if my wife was in on it... she swears she was not. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that she was talking extra trash that day. And when she got in over her head she called for back-up and they responded.

They attacked and then they retreated and I responded with pursuit. My man-sized body at that speed could not negotiate that sharp turn to that narrow hallway as well as their nimble munchkin bodies could. As usual I bumped into that first wall that was just after that first turn. As usual I could hear them laughing as they extended their lead and made their escape. 

Though they had a slight lead, this chase was far from over. While it was true they had the advantage in this narrow hallway, once we got out of this hallway, I knew I could take two steps to their eight. I would close the gap and catch up to them on the straight away through the family room as they tried to escape to their bedrooms.

I didn’t know about the escape route and when I made that first turn in that hallway, after I bumped into that first wall…

“BLAM!”

I slammed into that first cabinet door and stumbled backward. That door had caught me completely by surprise. More importantly it had completely stopped my momentum. My attention was focused downward as I closed the cabinet door and caught a glimpse of a tiny little body disappearing around the corner… OK they had pulled farther ahead, but I could still make up ground and I could still catch them.

Just as I got going again...

"BLAM!" 

I slammed into the second cabinet door and the chase was over. For the first time, they had won.

At first I was angry, I could have been hurt. And I had to explain it to them. I mean what’s next… banana peels, glass or tacks... perhaps marbles? I’ve seen the “Home Alone” movies, I know how this ends. But on another level I had to admit that I was impressed with the sheer diabolical thinking that goes into setting up an escape route.

Now that they are grown they still take their mother’s side but they are much taller now and can no longer get away by using the escape route. And now that they have reminded me I am busy plotting my revenge because someday they will have kids and grandpa is going to teach his grandkids how to set up escape routes of their own.

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A Parents Victory Lap

by Hero Jenkins

Remember those months while we waited for our kids to be born, remember when people asked us what were we hoping for. They were referring to what SEX… a boy or a girl. For you ultrasound youngsters, yes there was a time when we couldn’t find out what the sex of our unborn was until they were born. This was the questions we asked one another. Our response was always something like: “I don’t care as long as they have all of their fingers and toes I will be happy. “

But that was a lie and we knew it… we just wouldn’t say what our preference was… I’m not really sure why.

And remember after the child was born, just having all of their fingers and toes wasn’t good enough for us, so most of us worked hard to provide our child with what they needed to thrive. We pushed our kids to do good in school. We encouraged them to excel in athletics. We demanded that they tried their hardest at whatever they did and they weren’t allowed to quit. Yet when people asked us what we hoped for our kid's future we lied again. We said… “I don’t care, as long as they are happy.”

The truth is we did care! Every parent dreams that their kids will reach their full potential. Perhaps they will be a Barak Obama, to grow up to be President. To be a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, to grow up and invent that “thing” that changed the world. To be a Mohammad Ali, or Tom Brady or Kobe Bryant to be the standard in his or her sport that everyone else is measured by. We worried, didn’t we, that they would become that guy that climbed up into that tower in Dallas in 1961 or that guy who just recently walked into that school in Newtown.

The truth most of our kids will fall somewhere between these extremes. After all where do crackheads and prostitutes come from? … They don’t just ooze up out of the pavement. They are made and we all worry that there is something we are doing or did that can cause this epic failure. Sometimes it is the parents fault, but often it is not! Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop the worry does it? Even if it is a tiny worry buried deep… it is still there.

About 25 years ago, we spent $3,000 to take our kids on and EPIC WEEKEND. We had an indescribable time. It was over the top, it was spectacular, it was an adventure. We still talk about it when we get together and drudge up old memories. However, today that $3,000 would conservatively be worth $30,000 or more and it would no doubt come in handy… especially these days. My wife and I decided early on that we wanted to “make memories”… FANTASTIC MEMORIES… for our kids. So that’s what we did…. But… did we make a mistake in spending that money to make that lifetime memory. Would we have better served our kids by investing that $3,000 25 years ago and handing them the $30,000 today instead.

That’s the struggle, that is the question and the answer is always “balance”. I read an article last week where a caregiver listed the top five laments of those who had reached the end of their lives. Always in the top five was the wish that they had not worked so hard and the wish that they had not let their relationships wither and die. I know some parents who have worked hard and have substantial resources to pass on. But it came at a cost… their children do not know them and in many cases do not even like them. The kids take the money and happily spend it with little love for the hand that presented it to them. Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum where the parents didn’t work, squandered opportunities and as a result arrive at adulthood with nothing. They take from their kids and give nothing. Sometimes the kids genuinely care for their parents but often it is just guilt.

We struggle with the balance between the gentle nudge of motivation and pushing them over the edge. The balance between correction and squashing their spirit. Between encouraging independence and heading off destructive behavior.

You see… there is a broad area of balance between the two extremes and most of us fall within that broad area. You worry that you have not been great parents. I want to say to you that you have.

You lament that you haven’t given you child great riches and from where you stand… looking forward, that’s not likely to happen. Relax! Your kids are not rich, but they are happy. They are not changing the world for everybody, but they are good people and if you looked closer you would see that they are volunteering, donating, making the world better for somebody.

Is there something you could have done better? The answer is yes! But that isn’t a fair question. The question should be: did you do the best you could with what you had to work, with knowing what you knew at the time. Did you work hard and sacrifice and do for your kids before you would do for yourself. Did you stay up late and nurse them back to health when they were sick. Did you sit up some nights on those nights when they were out in this cold cruel world and pray for their safety?

Yes, you did all of these things and you have raised some great kids and its time for a victory lap because you have done the miraculous.

But you won’t, take that lap you will keep pushing to make your kid’s lives better and you will continue worrying that you have not done enough. Because a parent never stops. If this is you, I want you to step back for a minute and get a bit of perspective on where you have come from and what you have accomplished and then get back to work.

A Letter to myself

by Hero Jenkins

It was Saturday morning and without warning I was hit with vague memories of Saturday mornings with my kids and it made me smile.

I used to love Saturday mornings when my kids were little. I remember it was one of the few times we were all together. Between work and school, little league, soccer and other activities there was always someone missing. But on Saturdays there was a brief time, perhaps just an hour or two, where we all just hung out, before cartoons or chores pulled us apart.


I used to work nights so I would often sleep until late in the morning on Saturdays. My kids used to wake up one by one and crawl into bed with us. Sometimes I would wake up and they would all be there. I don’t know how it started. But for some reason our kids climbed into our bed on Saturdays. We never climbed into our parents’ bed, probably because there were so many of us. Eight in mine, I think my wife’s family had nine. I used to jokingly threaten to sell the house and buy a one-room shack. After all, why did we need a four-bedroom house if they were all going to cram into one room?

That made them giggle.

There was a lot of that I remembered… giggling I mean and yeah cuddling too.

We talked some, though I don’t really remember what we talked about. I doubt that it was substantive… just silly stuff I imagine.

I do remember that my sons were convinced that they could brainwash me by rubbing my temples and making suggestions while I was asleep. Suggestions, like “Pizza and 7up” for lunch. Sometimes I would just pretend to be asleep other times I really was. I would wake up to them massaging my temples attempting to plant suggestions. Later that day I would announce that I suddenly had an unexplained urge for pizza. They would exchange glances and grin… their brainwashing had worked.

My daughter was a cuddler, my sons were too… for about 30 seconds. Then cuddling turned to tickling and wrestling… much to her annoyance.

I don’t remember everything about those times. I just know it was a really special time. I don’t think we realized at the time how special those times were. I wonder how many of you young parents who are right now having these special moments realize what "special moments" these "moments" are. I could tell you to savor them, but I doubt you will understand what that means, I know I would not have.

I see my mother a couple of times a week. She is in the beginning stages of dementia. I often ask her what she did the day before, she claims she doesn’t remember. I think she remembers some of what she did but not all. Therefore she claims not to remember anything because she prefers not to try to remember everything. I usually take her to lunch or church or to the senior citizen meeting at a nearby church where she visits with all of her friends. She often forgets what we did in the morning by the time afternoon rolls around. But she knows she is happy, so she knows she had a good time, and that’s what counts I suppose.

I worry about that sometimes… about losing my memories. Perhaps it has already begun. Because I can’t remember some details of what we did on those Saturday mornings.

Yet I still remember them with a smile.

I think I’m going to ask my kids what they remember and see if it forces those memories back up from where they are hiding. Then I am going to write a letter to myself, to remind myself why I think about Saturday mornings sometimes with a smile.

***

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Saggy Pants and Low Cut Blouses (part one)

by Hero Jenkins

When my daughter was little we had this old rocking chair. She loved to crawl up into my lap and we would rock and talk for hours. Well... she talked and I listened. She was about five when she made me a “pinkie promise” that she would never grow up. One day, shortly after her twelfth birthday, I discovered she'd broken that promise when she let it slip that she thought Tom Cruise had a nice butt.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s gross… wait a minute, why did you notice!?”

“How could you not notice?”

Everything was downhill from there.

A few years later she got “bosoms” (I can’t bring myself to say the other word). She started going shopping with her friends and coming home with what I would call 'questionable choices' in clothing. I knew that I couldn’t control her impulse spending when she was out succumbing to peer pressure and buying inappropriate clothing with her  stupid  (I'm sorry, that was out of line) friends. So I decided not to fight the battle on THAT front. I simply told her: “Buy whatever you like, but if I don’t like it… I’m throwing it away.” So one day “now you see it” (she may even get away with wearing it)... but sooner or later it would simply disappear. "Now you don't."

A very wise man once said “trust but verify” and that’s what we did. Parents, you have no idea what your kids do when you're not around. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we did. We made no secret that we would be making surprise visits to their school. It was on a surprise visit when we spotted our middle son teetering atop the backboard above the rim of a schoolyard basketball court practicing jumping off and hanging onto the rim like basketball players did after a slam dunk (but that’s a story for another time.)

It was always a test of wills with my kids; my daughter was no exception. As I would find out later she was craftier than both of my sons put together... all wrapped up in an adorable little package. She started buying clothes that were layered… a cute, cover-everything jacket which hid the cover-almost-nothing blouse underneath. It would have worked too except for the fact that my wife and I were ninjas when it came to surprise visits to their schools. On one such visit I found my daughter minus the cover-everything jacket… surrounded by boys. Here’s where our accounts of “the incident” diverge. She swears that “the incident” wasn’t the way I describe it. First of all, her top was not “low cut” it was “form fitting”... and those boys were already her friends before she got her bosoms and started wearing skimpy tops.

Whatever. To me it looked like the scene in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” when Jessica Rabbit takes the stage.

“Oh Dad, no!  Jessica Rabbit is not something I want to be associated with. Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop and Lola Bunny are the three characters I never want to be compared to.”

Again... Whatever. I know what I saw.

Needless to say, the blouse (both halves) wound up in the garbage and money was wasted. Funny thing about growing up. Now that she is an adult and can dress any way she chooses, her choices are a lot more conservative. Go Figure.

Saggy Pants and Low Cut Blouses (part two)

by Hero Jenkins

Cops were thrilled when the saggy pants style hit - though they won’t admit it. The reason being that some (and I want to stress SOME, not ALL) of those individuals choosing to make this fashion statement engaged in criminal activity. And since most of these people were considerably younger and faster than the aforementioned cops, their saggy pants leveled the playing field considerably. It's pretty hard to run at top speed while constantly pulling your pants up.

I didn’t get it. To me the saggy pants just looked stupid, like they'd pooped their drawers or something. Why someone would pull their pants down and expose their underpants to the world escaped me. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how they stayed up at all. I asked my sons but they refused to tell me. I guess I was too old. Like... if you 'haftaask' you don’t need to know.

Now, I was not so old that I didn’t remember my teenage years. I wasn’t old enough to participate in the sixties, but the seventies… that was my era. Basketball players wore tighty-whitey style shorts and everyone had at least one pair of platform shoes. We wore medallions and headbands and danced on our skates. Our parents thought we were nuts. Our kids crack themselves up looking at photos of my wife and I when we were dating. We both had huge afros and wore hideous paisley shirts and bell-bottom pants. I had a couple of chest hairs and if you look closely at the photos you can see them because we didn’t really button our shirts in those days.

I understand that each generation has its style, but this saggy pants thing was different. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the style was designed to mimic prisoner attire, since baggy (as opposed to tight) fitting clothing is preferable in prison for obvious reasons. Then the hip-hop culture kicked in and adopted it... which lead to gangsta rap and everything that came after that. Times have changed and this kind of dress does not have the same stigma attached but at the time the style had “trouble” written all over it. My wife and I never liked the style - and we didn’t like the way law enforcement was reacting to kids who adopted the style. So when my SONS adopted it we decided to nip it in the bud.

At first, when they started strutting around the house with their “chones” (underpants) exposed I tried to reason with them. When that didn’t work I started strutting around the house with MY pants below my butt. It really grossed them out… I’m not sure why... but it did the trick. Alas, regulating their behavior at home was not enough. Sooner or later they would go out into the real world and it was a simple matter (once out of parental sight) to loosen their belts and drop their pants.

I soon grew weary of telling them to pull their pants up so I stopped. What I did next completely shocked them. I simply cut them up and threw them in the garbage.

***

Life's Adventures

by Hero Jenkins

I took my daughter to the park one day; she was about six years old. On our way to the swings I tripped over a sprinkler and fell onto the grass. She thought it was the funniest thing. She thought I was goofing around, so she fell down too. That set the tone, something clicked and even though we had been to the park many times, this time would be a special time.

We both laughed and rolled around in the grass for a few minutes then we ran to the swings. I pushed her a few times. Although she had learned to count years ago, she was in a phase where she counted everything so she made a game of it and counted the number of times I pushed her. Then it was on to the slide. We played and laughed and ran around the park that day until she wore herself out and it was time to go home. She had a wonderful time at the park that day and that night she jabbered excitedly about it to whoever would listen until she fell asleep.

A few days later we went to the park again and as we approached the swings I heard this tiny little frustrated voice: “No daddy, this is where you’re supposed to fall down.”

I looked around in time to see my daughter’s tiny, yet annoyed face. Then she walked up to me like a frustrated movie director and gave me a shove. And because she was only six, it wasn’t much of a shove. Nevertheless, I got the message. I was supposed to fall down. So I did. Then right on cue she fell down too.

She immediately sat up, something was wrong. It wasn’t as much fun as it was last time, I could see it on her face. She got to her feet and took my hand and it was off to the swings. She remembered the number of times that I had pushed her last time so that’s what we did… no more, no less. Next came the slide and then to the best of her ability she tried to recreate exactly that last trip to the park. Instead of playing and being spontaneous she had reached back to the last time and tried to re-live the last time. She didn’t understand that life just doesn’t work that way.

How many of you do that? Go to that same restaurant and order that same dish trying to recreate the magic you felt that first time. You go to that same bar and sit on the same stool probably next to the same people and order that same drink. You kids in school, you sit at the same area with the same people and talk about the same things. You pretend that its just as much fun, but deep down inside you know that it isn’t.

This is the first point I wanted to make.

You can’t orchestrate a good time. Usually the best times are spontaneous, so time spent trying to recreate a good time is usually a waste of time. It may be comfortable for you, but it will never be the same as the first time.

Don’t get me wrong, routine has its place and you can’t always be spontaneous. Most jobs are that way. I worked at a fast food place for years, nobody cared about spontaneity… they just wanted their burgers. If I had been twirling around back there trying to be colorful and spontaneous I would have gotten fired, and I needed that job. But your free time is yours and whenever you can, try something new. And if you are going to do that same thing again and again, do it with someone who has never been. Like... take a kid to Disneyland who has never seen it before. Sometimes seeing an old thing through new eyes can help you recapture that "first time magic" you are looking for. You can always climb back into your rut if that doesn’t work.

Did you know that on the top floor of one of the World Trade Towers there was an observation deck enclosed in glass? I remember they had every Manhattan landmark etched in the glass so that if you stood in the right spot and looked at the etching in the glass, you could locate the landmark. My memory is failing me right now, but I think you had to walk up a flight of stairs and you could stand on top of the building and see 50 miles of panoramic Manhattan. It was breath taking.

I used the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center for an additional reason. I have been there a dozen times. They had these giant elevators that moved about a hundred people all the way to the top of the 110 story building in just a couple of minutes. But what if I had been up there the day they were attacked and toppled. Yes, bad things can happen and they are going to happen to somebody… they always do. But these things are rare, so don’t be afraid. Live your life, but be responsible and don’t let one in a million disasters scare you away.

Did you know that there is a winding metal stairway snaking its way from the base of the Statue of Liberty all the way to the head? That if you are taller than 5’8” or so you are too tall to fit so if you want to take the stairs up you have to lean your head out of the spiraling stair case all the way to the top.

Once inside the statue the first things you notice is that the statue’s copper skin, which is about as thick as two pennies, is oxidized green on the outside but brown like a penny on the inside. At the top of the stairs is the head and the crown. The crown is an open, sort of round room about the size of your average bathroom with tiny cloudy plexi-glass windows through which you can barely see anything. So you don’t make the trip to the crown of the Statue of Liberty for the view.

There is only one Statue of Liberty, therefore only one experience in climbing it. I would have liked to have climbed up her arm to the torch but that’s been closed since 1916 when some German terrorist guys blew something up nearby.

I know the Statue of Liberty was closed for a while after 911 but it may have been reopened and the world trade center is gone so is the opportunity to stand on top of it.

And here is my second point. The opportunity to do these things won’t always be there and more importantly you won’t always be physically able to do them.

Be adventurous.

I don’t mean climb Mount Everest but why not take a hike. Quit looking at puppies on YouTube and go play with yours. If you don’t have one, go get one.

Have at least one “First” every year. First sky dive, first scuba dive, first trip to the beach (its hard to believe, but some people have never been to the ocean).

Did you know that for about $150 you could take an introductory flying lesson on an airplane? Flying is easy; now taking-off and landing… that’s hard. The pilot/instructor will get the plane in the air and then hand the controls over to you. I did it years ago, (it was only $50 back then).

Some of the happiest people I know are artists and musicians and they don’t even know they are happier than most because it’s their natural state. Learn to play an instrument, take a painting class… create something. Take an acting class even though you have no desire to be an actor or a singing class, even though you can’t sing a note outside of the shower.

I took yoga once. I used to laugh at people taking yoga, I thought it was a sissy sport until I tried it. Yoga is hard! I tried to ride a horse once, but the horse tried to eat me. I always wanted a motorcycle so I bought one and rode it for years. But you get hit by cars a lot on a motorcycle so I gave it up when I started having kids. I went snorkeling for the first time last year, the fish swam right up to me (nobody told me they did that… it kinda freaked me out). I once bought a calendar that had beautiful landscapes from across America. I decided that I wanted to see every one of them for myself, so I did. I made a list of all of the famous monuments that I wanted to see from the Eiffel tower in Paris to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and I did. It took years and a lot of saving, but I saw them all.

My kids and I are planning our next adventure; we want to see a professional baseball game in every one of its ballparks. God willing I will live long enough to do it.

What’s your next adventure?

The TERROR DOME!

This is not my son's Terror Dome. This photo was found on
the Internet to give you an idea of the size of the thing.

by Hero Jenkins

  

There would be excitement around our household whenever I managed to get time off work. It usually meant that my wife would take the opportunity to go and visit her mother and that I'd be staying home with the kids.

My job was crazy; there was a ton of overtime available. It didn’t take us long to realize that I could make more money working a few hours of overtime than she could make in an entire week. As a result, I worked long hours and she was usually stuck with the kids. She would look forward to when I could get time off. She would take one of her “mini vacations” as she called them... her “Mom’s getaway”.

Much to her annoyance the kids would be excited, not sad, when they learned that she'd be leaving (and she knew why). She knew that whenever she left me in charge, one of two things were about to happen. Either the kids and I would be doing something really crazy... or we would be buying toys… lots of toys.

This time, suitcase in hand, she turned and looked me straight in the eye and said, “don’t you dare spend money we don’t have on toys for these kids!”

“OK honey, no problem,” I said earnestly.

“I mean it, no toys!”

“OK, OK… got it! No toys!”

My kids must have been eavesdropping in the next room. They are usually noisy enough to wake the dead but at that moment I could have heard a pin drop. I don’t think they were even breathing!

She continued to stare me down, giving me her best evil eye. I knew she was serious; there was a huge vein popping out of her neck. The vein only made an appearance when she was serious.

“Honey, calm down or you’ll have a stroke.”

She cut her eyes to me. “No toys… I’m serious!”

I nodded. Then I saluted.

Bad move... now she was even more pissed!

She gave me the stink eye one last time for good measure and then turned and walked out to the car.

I was DETERMINED not to buy any toys. She would be so proud of me when she got back! What I didn’t know at the time, however, was that my sons had a secret weapon. A weapon so secret that I didn’t actually learn about it for twenty years! My sons called it "the pouty face" and they swore it never failed. More importantly, I was apparently unaware of the power it had over me... and that the one person who could deliver it with total effectiveness was my daughter. I couldn't believe it but she confirmed it, she even demonstrated it (traitor!). Anyway... I was powerless against the pouty face and everyone knew it but me.

They rushed to the window and watched their mom leave. When they'd given her enough time to get a sufficient distance away, those two little devils sent in their secret weapon: my daughter (armed with "the pouty face").

My daughter wanted a doll and a stroller; my boys wanted something they had been drooling over for months. Their favorite cartoon was GI Joe and within that show was the most awesome toy in the history of toys… the Cobra TERROR DOME!

Before long I found myself in the toy store face to face with the Terror Dome on display. It was huge - about the size of a beach ball. No way was I going to be able to hide that. I was toast... up "you know what" creek without a paddle and taking on water.

On one side I had the evil eye and on the other… pouty face. In the background I had two evil little masterminds who had orchestrated the whole thing. I was doomed.

On top of that the Terror Dome was crazy expensive. Great! I bought it with the credit card.

Well... when my wife finally returned home she was L-I-V-I-D… at first. The one thing that saved me was the fact that the boys were so happy. I went from zero to HERO because they would play with that thing for HOURS and my wife was thoroughly enjoying her extra moments of peace and quiet.

Then... fate dealt me a cruel blow.

Less than a week had passed when suddenly my wife noticed that my sons were no longer playing with their Terror Dome. What? I investigated and soon I knew why. On the cartoon, the forces of good had finally triumphed over the forces of evil and GI Joe had managed to DESTROY the Terror Dome. As a result, in their minds, there was no point in playing with it anymore because it no longer existed.

Seriously?!

That non-existent Terror Dome sat on our backyard patio for years just gathering dust. My wife forbade that it be thrown away. I think the neighbor's dog eventually ate it or something. To this day, the very mention of the phrase "Terror Dome" earns me a SERIOUS evil eye.

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