Words. Nothing but sweet, sweet words that turn into bitter orange wax in my ears

These words were spoken by my nine year old son Michael while playing Star Wars Battlefront on the PS2 at about midnight. My other son, his girlfriend, and I all looked at each other in stunned silence for a few moments. Our thoughts ranging from “Wow, that’s deep”, to “How on earth did my son speak something so profound", and "Do I have a young poet on my hands?” After a moment I asked, “Mike, did you make that up?” he replied, “No dad, Fry said it on Futurama.” We all laughed, some of which was in relief, I remember thinking “Damn, I’m 43 and could not come up with a line like that if I tried.” Of course, all this speaks to the power of TV, TiVo, and youthful obsession.

My nine year old son likes anything my 23 year old likes, so Futurama and the Family Guy are in constant rotation on our TV. I think my son has seen some episodes of Futurama 20 times or more. It’s like he watches them until he understands all of the references, then moves on to other episodes. Which brings me to my point, I watch them too, but I can’t even quote simple phrases. My favorite Futurama quote is from Professor Farnsworth, “That sounds dangerous. Somebody could get killed. Fry, Leela, Bender, you go.”