Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons (28 page)

“Little Hunter, the neighbor's daughter's best friend's godson?” Judy began, “was in his second cousin's wedding and burst out crying when he saw his tuxedo because he wanted to wear a red T-shirt like Winnie the Pooh! How cute is that?”

“Who wears a red T-shirt to a wedding?” I asked. “Unless you're a
Star Trek
security guard.”

“He was a ring bearer!” she yelled. “Get it? bearer?
Bear
? Like Winnie the Pooh?”

“Oh.”

“Oh, come on! You'd think it was funny if it was a dog!”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “A dog who burst out crying because it was forced to wear a tuxedo instead of a red shirt like Winnie the Pooh? Anyone would find that funny. I'm laughing just thinking about it.”

And then I got the whole why-are-you-so-heartless-and-cruel speech. Obviously I'm just torturing her by letting all that perfectly good DNA she passed on go to waste.

There are people who swear they didn't like kids until they had their own.

“You like them when they're yours,” my friend Stacy told me. “But I still think other people's suck.”

“But what if you don't like them
and
they're yours? It's not like there's a trial period.” I like to remind Stacy of Joan Crawford, who clearly did not like kids, even ones she willingly adopted.

Another friend pointed out that you only notice kids who make themselves noticeable. How many sleeping, cuddly, quietly-playing-with-their-plastic-key-chain-set children do I walk by on a daily basis, unaware of their existence? Plenty, I'm sure. But I can't help notice the crying, pooping, flopping-around-on-the-cool-tile-floor-like-Ice-T-in-
Breakin
' babies. They, like Kim Kardashian's butt, are just begging to be noticed.

Those noticeable kids cross my path more times than I care to admit. Sometimes I wonder if we're all born with a super power and mine is the ability to unleash the inner demon of those three feet tall and under.

Take that rotten six-year-old who was in line behind me at Gorditos. There I was trying to decide between a fajita or a quesadilla when,
wham!
—I felt a thump on my right butt cheek.

“Excuse me,” I said turning around to find a frowning little bastard with clenched fists. “Did you just punch me in the butt?”

He spun around to bury his face in his dad's crotch. Dad looked totally mortified, but I wasn't sure if that was because his kid just punched a stranger in the ass cheek or because his son's face was about a mile deep in his crotch.

“Did your son just punch me in the butt?” I asked the dad. “Because if he didn't, you did, and that's equally horrifying.”

“I'm sorry!” the dad said. “He's sorry! I'm sure he is. Tyler tell the nice woman you're sorry!”

But Tyler refused to look at me, preferring the denim safety of his daddy's crotch. He wasn't sorry, and I was pretty sure neither was his dad. I know he couldn't wait to leave so he could get back in his Land Rover, stick a Bluetooth in his ear, and call everyone he knew on the way home to tell them about how little Tyler thumped an uptight, childless woman right in the ass. Probably trying to knock what eggs were left right out of my ovaries. “That'll teach her not to have kids!”

My pummeled butt cheek will be heralded across the land at Christmas parties, office functions, and Tyler's next thirty birthday parties. And Tyler, seeing the reaction random acts of assault garners from his daddy, will spend the next three decades whacking stranger's private parts. That's how it begins—one day you're bored, waiting for your chimichanga, and you suddenly lose patience with the entire world so
wham!
Hit a stranger in the butt. Pay it forward. You'll feel better.

Now conversely, I am no stranger to bad behavior exhibited by something under my care. My friends are terrified of my cat. Yes, she's been known to attach herself to a forearm or two and bunny kick the skin away like she's peeling a zucchini, but for the most part she just wants her head scratched. Don't get me wrong—I think cats are evil. But they usually give a warning before they attack. Their tails snap like a freshly laundered sheet in the wind, their ears point backward. But a kid? Nothing. No sign. No symptom. And clearly no provoking needed. No one is safe in the presence of children.

But similar to cats they can tell when you don't like them. You know how cats sidle on up to the one who's deathly allergic to them? Kids can sense that crap, too. You don't like them? Fine. Be a hater. But you'll pay for that negative attitude. Oh, you'll pay.

Big Wheel Hooligan is proof of that. I encountered him a few months after my ass cheek was assaulted. Bart and I were walking to a neighborhood restaurant for breakfast when we passed a kid on a Big Wheel.

“Big Wheel!” I said, remembering my old Wonder Woman wheels. I was so bad-ass on that thing, pedaling as fast and furious as I could down from the corner of Harrison to our driveway, four houses down. Four houses, on a Big Wheel, when you're six, is a lot of freakin' effort. It's the equivalent of traveling from Phoenix to the Badlands by foot.
In the dead of summer.
Just trust me, okay? And when I got to my driveway, I yanked up the little hand brake, causing me to do a donut and spin out in the foamy puddle of Dawn dish soap left behind from Dad washing the station wagon. See? Bad-ass.

I was smiling and thinking how cool it was that Big Wheels were still around as we passed the kid and fell deeper into nostalgia when I heard the telltale sound of Big Wheel tires on cement.

“Oh, the memories!” I said. “Doesn't that just sound like summer?”

And then I thought, hmm, that sounds like it's getting closer and closer. And then, weird. This sidewalk isn't that wide. If I didn't know better, I'd say it's almost as if this little boy on his Big Wheel is chasing us.

Just as I was about to mention this to Bart, the heel of my sneaker was torn from my ankle and a pair of handlebars rammed up against my calves.

“Owwwwwwww!” I shrieked, tripping over some shrubbery. “Watch where you're going! What's wrong with you? Texting while driving again?”

And then Kid Evil pedaled his Big Wheel in reverse, unramming the handlebars from my calves, surveyed the damage, decided it wasn't quite good enough, and came at me again.

“Stop it!” I yelled, hoping to get the attention of the pack of wolves that clearly raised this beast. “Get him off me! Go home, kid! Shoo! Beat it!”

He reversed again but he wasn't going home to atone for his sins. He was gathering momentum for a third attack.

“Bart! Do something!”

Bart practically dislocated a rib from laughing so hard. He fell on someone's lawn, grabbing his butt and guffawing like the true gentleman and hero that he is.

“Ahhh!” I yelled. “Someone get this little monster away from me!”

Kid Evil didn't speak. He just glared at me with these dead, gray eyes. I swear to God we fought something similar to his kind in D&D last week. If only I knew how to smite undead.

When he reversed a fourth time I ran for it, pulling Bart up by the wrist and running down the sidewalk. We ran for probably twenty blocks, way past the restaurant, until we felt secure enough to look behind us. The kid was nowhere in sight, but I wouldn't have been surprised to see him pop out from behind a dumpster or the back of a Volkswagen. I hadn't seen the last of that little hell on wheels, I was sure of it.

“Was that weird?” Bart asked, “Getting assaulted by a kid on a Big Wheel? That was weird, right?”

“I'd like to say it was,” I said, “but given my history, it's actually pretty normal.”

“Your history?” Bart asked, sounding a bit concerned. All this time I tried to shield him from the real me.

“Think of me as some kind of Cruella De Vil understudy and everyone younger than the age of ten are children of the corn hell-bent on taking me down.”

“Maybe they sense your fear,” he said. “Like dogs.”

“I wish they were like dogs. I can handle dogs. Dogs listen to me.”

Bart raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“Most listen to me. If I have a dog biscuit. But if we had kids, we'd have to donate them to science just days after they're born. Or give them to Judy.”

He laughed. “That's not true! You're great with kids!”

Now I laughed. “Give me an example! When have you ever seen me interact with kids?”

He thought about this for a while before thoughtfully answering: “Just now?”

“See what I mean?”

“But wait,” he interjected. “That's not true. Your friends have kids. You're nice to them.”

“I send cards on their birthdays and make sure their moms get home safe when we go out drinking. Yep, I'm a regular Ronald McDonald.”

“That's a terrible example,” he said. “Ronald is creepy. No one likes that guy.”

“Fine. I'm Angelina Jolie.”

“Err …”

“Whatever. You get my point.”

We walked a couple more blocks in silence before Bart piped up again. “You played D&D with that brother and sister at Gen Con! You were nice to them and they were nice to you!”

He's right, I did play with a seven- and a nine-year-old. Their father was playing in a delve and the kids were just sitting there looking a little
lost. Bart and I had some spare time so we ran them through a very basic, scaled back adventure that involved a rabbit named “Chubbyfeet” and some very delicious macaroni. (We let them flavor the adventure Mad Libs style.)

“That doesn't count,” I told him. “We were role-playing. They had imaginary heroes and ice picks. I wasn't going to mess with them.”

Not to be deterred, Bart insisted the kids weren't playacting. “The little girl hugged you when she left. She clearly had fun with you.”

I don't bother telling him my suspicions that her awkward, around-the-waist hug was a lame attempt to get at my wallet. Mission failed because I don't carry a wallet in my back pocket, but I never did find my dice after that. Besides, it wasn't me the kids liked. It was most likely Bart and the voices he gave Chubbyfeet and friends and the magical powers the game gave them. Who can compete with that?

Perhaps Little Tyler and the Big Wheeled Bandit could benefit from a little playmat action. Punch an orc in the butt, Tyler, not a nice lady. Run over a kobold with your Big Wheel, Little Demon. He's a bad, bad monster, not a girl looking to fulfill her craving for buckwheat pancakes. Even Judy is hard-pressed to deny D&D has its benefits for kids.

“I would have loved it if you and your brother played D&D,” she said. “That means you would have had friends, right? Like human friends and not stuffed animals or the adulterers and hysterically pregnant residents of Pine Valley.”

I don't bother reminding her that D&D is a game that requires use of your imagination, and therefore it was likely Mike and I would have figured out a way to play with Mr. Bunny Pants and Erica Kane.

The “friends” thing is true and I can't help but imagine I would have found a better group to pal around with than the mean little hens I tried desperately to fit in with.

In fifth grade I invited my “friend” Beth for lunch. She was a notorious two-timer who would be your friend until something better came along. On this particular upstate New York winter day, something better, in the form of the Evil Trio, came along. Beth and I were on one side of the street while the Evil Trio was on the other. The trio catcalled to us, encouraging Beth to ditch me (and Judy's famous liverwurst sandwiches;
that
was the real crime). Beth obviously believed in quantity over quality in her friendships. She whispered a half-assed “sorry” as she crossed the slush-filled street. They cheered her decision and continued yelling fifth-grade insults at me until I made a left on Matthews Street and they continued onto Park. I ate both liverwurst sandwiches listening to Judy explain to me all the reasons that Beth was a loser, anyway.

I didn't give Beth the boot after that. I took her back when she asked if she could come over after school a few days later to watch the
Magic Garden.
Apparently I subscribed to the quantity-over-quality belief, too. I thought if Beth and I had a “shared experience”—a stupid commercial, an after-school special, my brother's friend's first zit—our friendship would somehow become tangible. Or at least strong enough to keep her on my side of the street.

“Hey, Beth!” I would shout across the bustling lunchroom. “Remember that commercial we saw yesterday with the guy who was wearing those pants? What was up with those pants?”

Anything we could witness together and recap, with heads tossed back in laughter the next day at school, would prove to the Evil Trio and everyone else that we were cemented in friendship. Sadly, there was nothing up with that guy's pants. At least not enough for Beth and me to bond over.

“What guy?” she asked, with this silly, confused look on her face. Clearly she was taking great pleasure out of embarrassing me. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Of course the other girls jumped on the Shelly's-talking-crazy bandwagon. After school, those bitches followed me to the corner of Matthews and Schubert Streets shouting vague, inane questions at each other.

“Terry, what was the color of that car?”

“Do you remember that hat, Beth?”

“What was up with the peanut butter, Molly?”

Oh, they were hysterical, they were. If only I had a fireball, I'd have blasted the whole lot of them. Instead I used the next best thing.

The next day after school I went up to Beth and punched her square in the jaw. The surprise knocked her off her feet, and instead of walking away (I had proven my point, after all) I couldn't resist her shocked, flailing horizontal body, and took it as an invitation to keep punching her. My fists of fury pummeled her until the crossing guard pulled me off and made Peter Winter's mom go inside the school to call Judy. Apparently I was a menace to the streets and couldn't be trusted to roam alone.