Really good ideas

“I have an idea.”

This phrase used to give me cold chills, until my daughter amended her catch phrase to, “I have a really good idea.” Now, I just have an overwhelming urge to curl up in a corner when I hear it.

Don't get me wrong. Her ideas are actually really good. The problem is her grip on reality is almost as shaky as mine. Neither of us sees the point in letting the Laws of Physics (most of which I would not have voted for anyway.) limit our flights of creativity. The main difference is, after forty plus years, I've learned which way to lean right before you light the fuse so you have a better chance of getting out of the blast range.

What has me afraid, very afraid, is that she is a good six years ahead of me.

Electricity and I have always had a... cautious relationship. It's not that we don't get along. We get along just fine, but it doesn't always keep up it's end of the bargain.

I remember our first run in. My dad had an old Lionel train set. Not the little things you buy now-a-days that are made out of plastic. No, they were made from steel and each car was at least a foot long and weighed pounds, not ounces. Every Christmas, I'd hassle my parents until they dug out the four boxes that held all the cars, tracks, buildings and trees. I'd carefully set the tracks up around the tree. You could tell these were made well before child welfare was established. The tracks connected via small, razor sharp shards of metal. I think the dried blood probably helped the electricity flow through the tracks faster.

Once the track was together, and the little houses and trees in place, it was time to connect the transformer to the track. Again, this was back when they made things to last. The transformer was a huge black box that was big enough to power a small third-world country. Every year, I'd plug it in and the lights in the house would dim for a second. I'd carefully line the wheels on the track. (Getting them lined up wasn't the hard part, levering the engine onto the tracks was.) We were then ready for the Christmas Tradition.

I'd turn the lever on the transformer, the lights would dim again and the engine would... do nothing. “It's still broken,” I'd proclaim and the second tradition would start, the Repacking.

But, I had the whole year to wonder why it was broken and how do you fix a transformer. One year I got the brilliant idea. If the transformer was broken, why not just take the transformer out of the equation. Stay with me, this makes sense, even now. The track needed electricity to run the engine. The transformer was blocking that. Take out the transformer, and voila! Working train. Now... What would effectively supply the electricity? Exactly, an old extension cord. All I had to do was cut one end off, bare the wires and my theory could be tested.

And I had the perfect tool to bare the wires. And they were custom made. See, I had a lamp by my bed as I was growing up, but the plug was right where I slept, so at night, the plug from the light would jab into my back. One day, I thought, if it was flat, no more poking. And, we had a replacement plug that was flat. It was perfect. Because my room was in the basement, there wasn't much light, so I needed to replace the plug quickly. I figured I could chop off a good five seconds by cutting the end off while it was still plugged in and keep the light until the very end.

You'd be surprised how easily steel melts. But, I now had a pair of pliers that were perfect for stripping wires and my career as an amateur electrician was off to a (literally) blazing start.

After cutting and baring the wires, I only paused a moment before attaching the bared wires to the track. Now was the moment of truth. I'd imagine Alexander Graham Bell felt the same trepidation as I did. (In case you are wondering, no, the train was not set up around the Christmas tree. I was young, not stupid. I'd set it on a ping pong table in the basement. The area was surrounded by thick concrete blocks and should be able to contain any unforeseen explosions.) As I plugged the cord into an outlet, I got my first view of how fast electricity travels. Sparks flew from the engine as it got the full jolt of energy that it'd been missing for years. The track became a mere idea as it hit a corner and continued in a straight line and became airborne for at least twenty feet.

How does this relate to my daughter? Well a few weeks ago, I heard her in her room, crying. I went up and found that all the lights upstairs were off. A fuse had blown and left her in the dark. Flipping the circuit breaker fixed the darkness and my wife and I consoled her until the sobs stopped.

A little later that night, I got another shout from upstairs. The cord on my daughter's lamp was frayed. As I looked it over, the “frayed” was more a cut. The cut was all too familiar. “Did you cut the wire?”

Her little shoulders trembled a bit as she nodded.

“Why?” I might have sounded a little more severe than I wanted, but in my defense, it's hard to sound parent-ally concerned when you are trying not to laugh.

“I thought it was a good idea.”

Everyone says that I am going to be in trouble when she reaches her teen years. Me, I think the world is going to be in trouble when we combine my years of knowing which way to jump and her really good ideas, especially after she has several years to fine tune them.