Holy Cow! The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys Is Three Years Old Today, And Still Writing On The Intertunnel Wall With A Crayon

My son received The Dangerous Book For Boys as a gift. It’s a right smart looking tome, with its old-fashioned cloth cover, Warren G. Harding typeface, and heavyweight off-white paper inside. I got to looking around in there.

Hmmm. How to play soccer. Make a paper airplane. Marbling paper.

Marbling paper? This is beginning to sound like the Dangerous Book For Emily Dickinson. It appears to my untrained eye that perhaps the only dangerous thing in this book is nine letters between “The” and “Book.” Well, we are not our hearty and hardy forebears, are we? But perhaps we can punch this up a bit. Kick it up a notch. There are plenty of things a boy can do to get himself in real trouble these days. Here’s my outline for new version:

1. Ride a bicycle without a helmet. You heard me. And no spandex spangled with lavender and chrome yellow blotches and French words. You’ll wear canvas shoes, too. You will not have anything with you that people with helmets refer to as “hydration.” Eventually, you can get a snort of rubber-tasting hot water from a garden hose.

2. Tell your 5th grade teacher, when she starts in with the Vegan lecture again during a spelling lesson, that you’re going to kill and eat your supper as soon as you can get your hands on some weapons. Then inform her that if she gives you anything less than a ‘B” on any report card because you told her that, your father will have a phalanx of lawyers turn her life into a deposition purgatory. Then don’t pass in any homework for the remainder of the term. Let’s see who has the stones.

3. We’re playing FOOTBALL, without any equipment but the ball. There are no rules, so this chapter is short. Soccer is Irish stepdancing with a ball introduced. We don’t want any of that.

4. We’re going out with dad on Earth Day, and we’re cutting down a tree with a chainsaw. Dad is hung over and is in a hurry and there is only one set of ear and eye protection, so one of you risks blinding, the other deafness. Solidarity is the hallmark of any male bonding ritual. The chainsaw’s guard is cheap and flimsy, but that doesn’t matter because it came out of the box broken anyway. Which leads us to…

5. Duct Tape. We’re going to use a lot of duct tape. We are going to dress our wounds, splint our shins, fix our tools, and tape our little brother’s door shut with glorious, magnificent Duct Tape. When the womenfolk complain about the gummy residue it leaves on your siblings, we will remove it with rags soaked in acetone. These will be disposed of improperly. I guess. Who reads the MSDS sheet? Girls.

6.We are not cave men, son. Electronics are a part of our world now. You will find pictures of girls on the internet who are not clothed. You will educate yourself on the proper procedure for removing cookies and browsing history. You will leave one picture of a girl wearing only very steeply inclined clear shoes and a fetching pill-box hat on the hard-drive, and when it is discovered –by mom– you can deny, deny, deny. Then watch your dad squirm and sleep on the couch for a week.

7.Firecrackers.

8. You will have a sip of Dad’s beer while you watch the football game together. You will remark on the grooming, stature, or level of pneumatic charms displayed by a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader while doing so. Dad’s beer tastes awful, and dad knows it, so this isn’t all that dangerous for you. He, however, is risking a decade in the pokey over this. We’re in this dangerous thing together, son.

9. You will fight with your fists with the biggest jerk in your school. If you’re the biggest jerk in your school, you will fight with at least two classmates at a time, or any adult that rides a recumbent bicycle. You will all be in trouble, bigtime, with every adult involved. You will sit on the bench outside some boneless wonder’s school administration office, rubbing your shiners, and share the respect reserved only for the men in the arena. It’s the only real way to make friends with people you don’t like.

10. You will give the Dangerous Book For Boys to your little sister.