Never (period)

While walking through Home Depot this afternoon, my son threw this very random question at me:  

"Mom. Would you rather eat a live tarantula or jump into shark infested waters?"

He was serious. 

My first answer was: "Dude. Where did you pull that out of?" And then, "Do you sit around and think about these things?" 

But he insisted...

"I can't even answer this question Zach. Both of those things do not even show up on my radar of possible-things-I-might-have-to-decide-t0-do-in-my-lifetime."

But as I was standing in front of the paint samples I found myself doing one of those "what if" type of thought loops. What if? What if I was forced to choose? What if someone held a gun to my head? "Lady! If you want to live, you must either eat the tarantula or jump off the boat into these shark infested waters!" 

Never. Never would this happen. (As I shake my head in protest.) Relax, I told myself. Do not waste needless emotional energy over something that would never happen. Snap out of it.

Ten years ago when I was pregnant with my first child, a boy, I would lie awake at night and plan and dream and write my mental list of things I would never do:

spank him

feed him sugar

let him go in the street

use bribes

use guilt trips

let him watch more than a half hour of tv a day

use tv as a baby sitter

let him chew gum--until he was five

let him play with guns--nerf, plastic, squirt, cowboy, pellet, real...

Let's face it. Never is an over-rated word. We hitch our ideals and dreams onto the Never-Boat and watch it set sail off into sea of life and possibility and some how it finds its way back to us with the tide, as if to say, "Really? You really mean it?" 

True loyalty to your Never is revealed for what it is when you are finally faced with the actual moment of decision.  Eventually, most Never's come back to us on the tide to test us, to question our loyalty. There are few things in my life I can say have survived this test in which my Never came through shining and intact. (Sadly, the only thing on the list above that survived was the gum chewing.)

So here I am...I have given in to the guns. 

Two things aided in the letting go of my Never:

I was weary from the fight. 

I gave in to the truth that there is something inherently in his boy nature that simply is drawn to a weapon. I have seen boys without this but my boy is not one of them. It begins when they are old enough to play out their imagination. And it is such a slippery slope. When he was two it was just a stick he imagined into a gun, then it was discovering he could build block guns, Lego guns, Tinker Toy guns. Then it was trying out Papa's vintage Daisy Red Rider BB gun. In the last year he has amassed a trunk full of Nerf guns. Now every day he is asking how he can earn money to buy an Air-Soft gun. Will it ever end? 

Tonight it was his dad's pellet gun. His father stood behind him (in his 15 year old tow truck driving shirt that one day I will dedicate an entire blog post to) watching him carefully, teaching him how to put the safety on, and yelling at him to stop waving it around. I know it is only a matter of time until he starts asking when he is old enough to own a real gun. 

"Never," I'll tell him.

I think I will employ my brother, a highway patrol officer, to sit down with him and give him "a talk" about guns. Perhaps Uncle James can say a thing or two, you know, to put the fear of God into him? Because I'm still holding onto that last Never. Gonna face it with a loyalty of steel when it comes back on the tide to meet me on the shore. God give me strength.

p.s. Tarantula. I'd eat the tarantula.