I am unclean and my grandson, Apollo, wants to watch “A Bug’s Life” again. He is 3-years-old with all the rights and privileges thereof. We have watched this DVD twice every day. I know every scene-every word-every syllable of every word. He flat out refuses to use the Mickey Mouse headphones I bought him and I am not allowed to leave his side. I have been swimming with him. We have been to an indoor playground where I crawled through tubes, climbed ladders, and slipped down slides at a very high velocity. (For the record, the oldest and largest person should go down the slide before the toddler; an obscure law of physics one should never forget.) I even played video games at the arcade. Most of the time, I didn’t actually put a token in the machines. He didn’t seem to notice that the score wasn’t changing. Or perhaps he did notice and that is why he is torturing me with this insect movie.
That’s why I am unclean. I don’t mean in the biblical sense; I mean I am afraid to stay in the shower for more than 2-3 minutes. So I alternate cleaning my major muscles like I alternate weightlifting at the gym. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday upper body, then, Tues and Thursdays thighs and calves. If I tarry too long, Apollo begins to do magic tricks. He can make random, dangerous objects appear out of nowhere. In fact, I didn’t know I owned so many books of matches. Who even uses matches anymore?
Anyway, every time he watches the movie, he laughs at the same jokes. He is mesmerized by the colors and characters. Do you know how much money I would save if I could be content with only one DVD? No more Netflix or Amazon streaming movies. No HBO fight nights. No Redbox.
Strange as it seems, he is teaching me something about patience and being in the moment. The more I watch this movie, the more I notice new, different things that I missed before rather like watching the old DVD’s of his father and brother when they were about his age. After he leaves, I’ll put the DVD on a shelf with the others. The memories? I suppose they will replay in my mind over and over, making me laugh at the same scene every time.