Neighbors On Wheels

I try to get the kids outside every day during this COVID stuff, and since parks are off limits, this usually means a long walk pushing the baby and Erik scooting. Sometimes we will go over to the train station where Erik can fly down the ramp on the scooter and slam on the breaks before smashing into the wall. Always a harrowing adventure. Sometimes we just go around the neighborhood, and every once in a while I will come home with a six pack of beer, or "yuck juice" as Erik calls it, from a local brewery. 

We have a neighbor around the corner who has giant action figures of the Cybertron native Transformers Optimus Prime and Megatron, leaders of the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively, proudly displayed in his window. Young Erik as an absolute Transformers freak so he just about lost his mind when he saw his heroes living a couple buildings down. Now no matter where we were headed, he has to first greet his favorite robots in disguise. Then one day the guy who lives there heard the commotion of my son spouting off Transformers information in his one volume level he likes to use, 11, and the dude who lives there slid his window open and said hello.

They got big pew-pews. I try not to let Erik say gun much, so we say that. 

It turns out Transformers Stan, as we have come to call him, writes and draws comic books for a living right there in his basement. Now he regularly gladly stops for a break from writing to chat us up when he hears us going by. I cannot say I have ever known a comic book writer, and the fact that he is a fan of Transformers and wants to write books about them is that much cooler. Erik has gotten me way back into the world of Transformers, and I think that is kind of common when you have kids. I remember my sister started to get more into collecting Thomas the Train than her kids, but I think it is even cooler when it is something you liked as a kid. I recently spent way too much on a Transformers coffee mug, and it's the first one out of the wash and into the Kuerig every time. 

Tell met that ain't the bee's knockers. 

As hard as it can be to make new adult friends, I think it would be cool to hang out with Transformers Stan when this whole Covid thing is all done and check out the comics he is working on. Erik is convinced that he will be able to get over to Stan's and play with all his toys, but I tried to explain to him that adults just like to collect toys and display them, not play with them. That is really hard to understand when you're a kid. 

We got a lady in the neighborhood who walks a dog with no hind legs, and she pulls the dog with some wagon wheels attached to the dog somehow. One day I made a joke out of earshot of the woman (and the dog) and said, "Look, Erik! A Transformers dog." I for sure blew it because now he goes nuts and calls him Transformer Dog loud enough for the woman to hear every single time he sees the dang dog. I really should apologize to the woman, and perhaps Dogimus Prime, next time he does that. 

We also got this next door neighbor who shoots off awesome illegal fireworks in the alley every 4th of July, usually dangerously close to the power lines. We always watch from our balcony and cheer him on. This time he stopped the show and let us know that the show was moving to the front because some woman came by asking him to stop because it was spooking her rescue dog. I don't know if said woman was the owner of Dogimus or not. At the time I was mad about someone taking the time to walk all the way over to complain on her dog's behalf about something you expect to hear every 4th of July , but in retrospect I guess you don't want some shell-shocked dog rolling around the apartment bonking into everything. The thrill of those fireworks perhaps hitting cars, the power lines, or even us is fun and all, but we got to think of Dogimus Prime and his post traumatic stress disorder from that explosion in whatever dog war for Cybertron he was fighting at the time. Support your veterans.

If you're taking the time to comment, how about what you did on the 4th of July if you celebrate it, a story about an interesting neighbor, stuff you liked as a kid that you are still into, or anything at all that you want to talk about and I'll be sure to respond.