Something is Happening...

Beautiful bike, with a Space-X kickstand!

My son turned 40 this past October, among other things this make me old. Needless to say a lot can transpire in 40 years and it is fair to say that my son has packed the maximum amount of "stuff" into that 40 year time frame. I think it is also fair to say that by 40 years of age, a man is pretty much set in his ways. At 40 years of age a man pretty much "is who he is".

My son and I are different in so many ways. He is 6'4", I am 5'7" (and shrinking). He is athletic, I am...not. He is good at golf, I love the game. I create conflict, he resolves it. He is a free spirit, I am cautious. I am organized to the point of OCD, his garage looks like a bomb went off. You get the idea. These are not the differences between an old man and a young man, these are differences that have existed for a long time, just about 40 years. There is a joke in our house that he may not really be my son. I am not suggesting that my wife was unfaithful 41 years ago, I am suggesting something far more innocent. I think that we brought the wrong baby home from the hospital 40 years ago.

I assure you it could have happened. My wife went through a very long (like two weeks) labor, finally needed a c-section operation to deliver our (did I mention very large) son. She was wasted from the entire episode, she could have brought a cat home from the hospital and would have been none the wiser. I had my own issues at the time and let's just say I was not "100%" with the program. And the hospital and their staff, they would rate about a "4" on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best. So for 40 years I have quietly accepted the fact that this tall, athletic, free spirited, disorganized kid quite possibly might not be my son.

But, sometime in this past year, something started happening. I first noticed it back in July, my son and his wife were helping us to move. His wife and kids helped me and my wife to pack all the small stuff in boxes. I hired moving professionals to load all the heavy furniture into two PODS that were in our driveway. My son and I were loading the boxes into the PODS when it happened. My son looked at the professionally loaded furniture in the PODS and determined that he could reorganize the professionally packed contents more efficiently. Totally out of character for my son! Even more crazy, he proceeded to repack the contents and much to my surprise this exercise produced more space in the PODS, a lot more space!

More recently he bought a new car, let's say around October. Most people are like my son with a new car, they are real careful with the new vehicle for a couple of weeks or even months but before long, the new car doesn't look very new. My son holds some kind of world record for that new car honeymoon time frame. Historically, his new cars would look like a $40,000 dumpster on wheels in not weeks, but days. This car is different, it still looks brand new. More incredibly he is adding value to the vehicle with high quality after market items like a roof rack, a trailer hitch and a bike rack that looks like it was engineered at Space-X.

Bikes, did I mention the bikes. He recently purchased bikes for him and his wife. Again, very high quality bikes. The bikes did not come with kick stands. Before these recent changes I knew what that would mean. These high end bikes would very soon be laying somewhere on the floor in his garage where it looks like the bomb exploded. Wrong. My new son bought kick stands. High end kick stands presumably engineered, again, by Space-X. My son installed the kick stands. My son didn't ask me to install the kick stands. What on God's green earth is happening!

Now the final proof that something is happening. This past Saturday, my son loaded the high end bikes onto the Space-X engineered bike rack that was installed into the trailer hitch on the back of the still shiny new car and he convinced his family that they should take a bike ride on a 40 degree windy, drizzly day. For some strange reason, his wife and children agreed. Did I mention that my son is very convincing?

I wasn't there but, I saw the pictures. The weather was terrible, the bike trails were muddy and the bikes...the bikes were a mess. So I assumed that the new bikes would be new no more. Wrong again. My new son went home and cleaned every inch of all four bikes in the now less than 40 degree weather. He then drove the bikes to my house and stored them in my organized basement. I am convinced, my son is out of his mind.

You would think that I would be happy. Happy that after forty years, I can dismiss the "hospital switched our baby conspiracy theory". Happy that my son is really my son.

I am not happy but more concerned. I am concerned that this behavior could progress to the point where my son will become exactly like me, just taller and more athletic. Please pray that this never happens. This world is not big enough for another person as complex (and I don't mean in a good way) as me!

By the way, I love my son, the old one or the new one.