That Was So NINJA!

It's been a really mild winter here in Massachusetts, at least so far. So, is this going to be a story about the weather?

Sort of.

Here's the story:

We finally had a little snow here in Massachusetts, and of course Handsome felt the need to go out and play in it.

Aw, who am I kidding? I felt the need too.

I was sort of trying to fight it off; I’ve never edited a novel before but I’m giving it a shot. Having just the smidge of an idea how much work this edit will entail, my plan was to get him to the hill with the other kids and let him loose on the sledding world while I sat in the car with more than 300 pages of single-spaced manuscript and a pen.

That was my plan.

Then I saw the snow-covered hill with its sleds zipping down while children trudged back up, and before you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (and some of the older crowd who are Disney fans probably can say that) I was struggling into my ice fishing/sledding gear behind the parked Jeep. Those of you who are paying attention might ask why I even had this equipment with me if the plan was to let Handsome sled while I sat in the car editing. I would like to inform these people that all questions must be submitted in writing and will be answered at the end of the term.

*ahem*

So there I was, sledding with Handsome. Handsome, being a ten -year-old boy, occasionally exhibits all the attention span of a meth addict who’s been hopped up on sugar and handed the remote control to a 52” television with all the channels. In minutes the sledding had morphed into an odd, somewhat violent snow-fight involving two plastic sleds (shields) various wrestling and karate moves (take-downs in the snow can actually be quite fun) and fistfuls of loose snow (because who really has time to pack a good snowball when your opponent is bearing down on you intent on taking out your legs and going for the pin?). We were in the middle of this comic-book-type battle when it happened.

I was lying on my side with Handsome lying atop but perpendicular to me, on his back. I had his left arm trapped with my legs and his right arm held with my right arm… if you picture us lying in the shape of a capital “T”, him with the back of his head lying on my sternum, you have it pretty well right.

Now though we were both on the ground at the time, and he was, technically, on top of me, I had the upper hand. I had both of his arms pinned, while one of my arms (the left) was free to scoop and throw snow. So I did. I scooped up a handful of cold, powdery whiteness and thrust my arm out past his head just about as far as I could. Since I was lying sort of behind him, this put my hand out in front of his face. With a flick of my wrist I cast the handful of snow into his face so that he, arms pinned and helpless, wound up with a face full of cold.

At least, that was the plan.

Seeing my hand push out past his face and noticing the chilly cargo it contained, Handsome intuited my plan and took action. Timing it perfectly, he jerked to the right just as I flicked my wrist, managing to get his head out of the path of my throw and allowing the snow to simply cascade down, past his face… and into my own.

Let me see if I can say this more plainly: in a move worthy of every Jackie Chan flick in existence, Handsome ducked out of the way and allowed me to throw snow into my own face.

Into my own face.

To all those people out there who have watched movies or television shows where a little guy outmaneuvers the bigger guy and the big guy winds up smashing himself in the foot with a club, or hitting himself in the head, or otherwise doing himself harm, and you have sat there wondering Oh, my God, who would be that stupid? I have one thing to say:

*Little finger wave* “Hi. How you doing?”

Talk to you later!