—
“Dad, did you know that Einstein discovered an element? It’s called Einsteinium,” my son tells me.
“Bullcrap,” I tell him. I know, that seems harsh to say as a father. I should be encouraging his exploration and applauding his discoveries. He lets me hear every fact that he discovers. Before this conversation, we had a very long talk about how the economy in the Marvel Universe isn’t plausible. I have learned that often my boy is full of shit.
“No, it’s true. I watched a Youtube video of it,” he says. He jumps up from the couch ready to start another debate. It’s not that I don’t want to encourage my son, but you have to be careful. We’ve had the talk about what he may see online may not be the truth. There is a lot of crap on there and just because someone says it, doesn’t mean that it’s right. Basically, I’m afraid that one day he will come to me and say that jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.
“We’ve talked about this. There are a lot of weird people on the internet and they often don’t know what they are talking about,” I tell him. I take a drink of my whiskey because now I am in full on father mode. I lean back in my faux leather chair and prepare to totally wreck my son. It’s a tough lesson, but it has to be done.
“This one is true. There is an element called Einsteinium,” he says. The confidence in his voice is what scares me a little bit. His voice is strong and his hands are animated, flying about his head as he explains to me about this new mysterious element he has learned about.
I monitor his Youtube activity like any good parent. I know that I should be more concerned about him finding some sort of weird fetish porn on the internet, but he just doesn’t look for stuff like that. He spends his time watching videos about space and science. But even in those realms, it can be scary as hell. If he comes to me one day confidently talking about the Earth being flat, I’m going to have to give his first whipping.
The truth is that he is normally right about this kind of thing. He is also at that know-it-all stage where he loudly proclaims every time I am wrong. It’s like walking around the house with a little Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder screaming out your screw ups. It gets tiring. If I say it’s 9:30 in the morning, he will let me know that no, dad, it’s 9:31 in the morning. It’s a bit exhausting.
Ok, so maybe I’m calling him on this Einsteinium thing because I’m getting a little payback. It’s petty and a father shouldn’t engage in it. But try walking around all day and having your son telling strangers that his father doesn’t understand the dangers that AI presents. Basically, we are both being buttholes.
“Dad. You should know this!” my son says. This is what pushes me over the edge. He’s talking down to me. His own father. And the thing is, I’m good at shit like this. Hell, we do science experiments at home! We built a real-world trebuchet just so we could talk about potential energy and learn about the Pythagorean theorem. I took the kid to NASA! I know some science, you little smart ass.
“Fine, let’s look it up,” I say as I get out my computer. I finish the rest of my whiskey and put the tumbler on the coffee table without bothering to aim for the coaster. Screw the table, this is serious now. I know that this sounds like a humble brag about my son, and it’s meant to. Kid is smart. Sometimes too smart for his own good. Especially when he starts thinking he knows better than dad.
I pull up google and type in Einsteinium.
Shit. There is a Wikipedia page on the element. Right there, a whole freaking page.
“See! Einsteinium! I told you, dad! You should know this!”
I read quickly. The little bastard is right. There is such an element. But there is also something else he isn’t seeing. A technicality. Maybe I didn’t know that this element exists but as a suburban father that just did his taxes, I do know about loopholes.
“Slow your roll, bub,” I tell him. “It’s a synthetic element and it wasn’t discovered by Einstein. It was NAMED after him.”
“That’s the same thing!” he says.
“Like hell it is. You got duped. And it’s synthetic. That means that it is man-made.”
“I know what synthetic means! What difference does that make?” he asks.
“It makes me right and you wrong. It’s a fake element. Yup, fake news!”
“Dad!”
“Nope, I’m right. You are wrong. I’m sorry you are wrong. I feel for you. But you are still wrong. You are so wrong that even your wrongness is wrong.”
“No, I’m not!” he says and launches himself at me. It’s turned physical now. Sure, he may be a bit smarter than his old man but I’ve got a good 175 pounds on him. His mouth is writing checks that his ass can’t cash. I’m going to tickle the wrongness out of the boy.
The next time he comes to me with some obscure knowledge he’s picked up on the internet, he’ll realize to check all the loopholes before getting into it with me.
—
—
Photo credit: Flickr/NASA
.