He needs food

Maybe this happens to you, too. Maybe sometimes you just sort of forget to feed your children. You know, time slips away, that sort of thing. Not days or weeks, mind you. An hour, maybe? OK, a few hours.

OK, it's 2 p.m. and I've forgotten to feed him lunch. (Note to self: Ask his mother why in the world we don't have a trough filled with Cheerios installed around his neck.)

I'll say this: Human nature, when lacking a sufficient supply of nutrients, can turn utterly ambivalent to a father's good intentions.

I'll say this, too: Carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, all these things are what pull the ropes that cause his mouth to smile and make him the affable, lovable 6-year-old that he is, except when he's hungry, and that's when he turns into a lunatic.

And the kid is hungry now. His glycogen level has dropped. And so has his smile. And so has his toy Transformer. And so he's in the backseat, and he's whining, and it's not a good situation. I've got a Code-Red food emergency on my hands.

I can hear his mother’s voice rattling in my head. “You’re going to feed him, right?” she said that morning before she headed off to work. When I hear the replay in my head it seems less condescending than the first time I heard it, more a well-intentioned inquiry.

“Yeah, I’m going to feed him,” I said, conjuring gall. “What do you think I am, a dope?”

Now here we are, my boy and I, way past lunch. What was I thinking? We lingered too long at the nursery, having sweet dreams of clematis you could get lost inside. We lingered too long down at the Green River, searching for rainbow trout and an elusive swimming holes. We have the day off, the two of us. All was going so well, father and son, belly laughs, a burping contest, idyll speculation about what number is larger, 14-hundred-thousand million or 70 bazillion-million. 

But children need food. And in Transformer lingo, he has turned into the evil, versatile Decepticon: a truck crashing into my conscience, a robot laser beaming a hole into my self-esteem, a fighter jet razing the ramparts of my patience.

He wants his Transformer — now! I know it's the hunger talking, but I feel like all the sudden a sinister cloud formation just emerged from clear blue skies and came to a screeching halt above our heads and now it's raining angry reptiles.

I pull over onto the side of Route 7 so I can to reach for his Transformer. As I'm doing so, I catch a glimpse of a diner across the street, Ena Cafe. It beckons. I make haste. I unbuckle my boy. He, his Transformer and I head in. Since you, too,­­­ sometimes forget to feed your children (we're agreed on this, right?), you know what happens next. He doesn't want to go in. But he doesn't want to not go in. But he doesn't want to eat. But he doesn't want not to eat.

Ladies and gentlemen, please run without shoving: We've got a full-core-reactor meltdown. And as is the case with all meltdowns of the nuclear variety, my boy needs to be controlled, cooled and sealed. So we take a table off in the corner, and I order him a hot dog and fries and a soft drink. I order pancakes and bacon and coffee for myself.

My boy stands his Transformer up on the table so it's staring straight at me. It's clear they've formed an alliance against me.

“I'm so hungry, Dad,” he says.

His Transformer just stares at me, coldly — an unblinking, accusatory, soulless, nostril-flaring death stare.

“I'm so sorry,” I say. “The time got away from me. Spring has got me excited.”

My boy is going limp. A chair cannot contain him. He's liquid seeking its level.

The food finally comes. I scoop him up and set him down. He doesn't want the hot dog. He wants my pancakes. We switch. We dig in. It's only a matter of minutes — only a matter of a few mouthfuls — and the day is saved. The nutrients have landed. We're back to where we were: a couple of guys in a loose mood with the day off and the earth smelling of beautiful, miraculous life.

Back in the car, he's strapped in, taking his Transformer for a ride through space, one of the good guys again, flying high, preparing to commit a heroic act for the sake of humanity, somewhere far, far beyond the chafed hills of hunger.

But I don't need to tell any of you this, because all of you have been there, right? Hello …