Future In Perfekto ...

I've always liked kids. I don't know if it has more to do with the fact that I can easily relate to the cool new toys they have, or the television shows they like, or to the movies they dig. I just don't know. What I do know is that when it comes to family gatherings, I get excited to hang out with the kids more than the adults. While this is not a reflection on the adults themselves, I just find the silliness and honesty of kids refreshing.

The holidays are a perfect example of this. My lovely fiance has a rather extended family, and their kids are a blast to hang out with. My cousins have kids, too, but they're a tad older, I believe. Nonetheless, they're still fun to hang out with and watch tear open presents and talk to about the cool stuff they enjoy.

I look forward to the day when my eventual wife and I have kids, spawning our own little versions of ourselves. I envision our kids as cool, listening to Interpol and Pomplamoose and reading Maurice Sendak and dancing like fools whenever they want, and wearing t-shirts that say "Rock and Roll" with sparkly things on them.

I don't know why I have this vision of my kids being so cool. I'm not so cool.

The one thing I worry about is not being able to talk to my kids. I curse a bit, and of course, I don't want my kids to have this habit, but one phone call between me and my buddy Paul would throw that out the window as the f bombs are plentiful between he and I.

I also envision a scene between my son (or daughter) and I where I, being in my thirties by this point, assuredly, with all my video games and toys (all antiquated by the time I hit thirty) stored away in my "man cave" or "office" as I'll call it to give it validity. Posters of my favorite movies and video games adorning the walls, I see my "office" as a place my kids will have no interest in hanging out in.

I remember Stephen King saying something like that in "On Writing" (the only King novel I've ever read, by the way, something I plan on changing in 2011), how his children never hung out in his office. I don't remember why that was, but they never did.

I see myself carrying a copy of "Monopoly" or "Chutes and Ladders" into the family room, and asking my son if he could disconnect from the neural net for a minute to talk to him.

Frustrated, he rolls his seven year old eyes and demands to know why I asked him to stop playing "Death War 3000" (the latest from EA games).

"Son, come, join me at the dining room table."

Sighing, he follows me to the dining room table, presses a button, and a Mountain Dew pops up, frosty and with a straw. He begins sipping loudly.

"We're going to play a game."

"You downloaded the latest patch for 'Death War'?" He asks, excitedly, his missing front tooth causing me to smile.

"Nope, we're going to play 'Chutes and Ladders'."

"Is that the latest IP from Valve Software?"

"No, son. It's a board game."

"How much is it on iTunes? I think I have like, sixty bucks leftover from Christmas ..." He says, whipping out his iPad, which has been permanently connected to his forearm and made smaller thanks to Apple's technological dominance during the First Techno Wars of 2016. All newborns are henceforth installed with an iPod monitoring their purchasing content and viewing streams.

"No, no, it's not on iTunes. It's here. Look." I say, unpacking the game.

My son watches, disgusted that I would propose we play a game made on cardboard with little plastic bits. Happy-faced children dancing up and down ladders and slides. Completely counter to "Death War 3000", a game he's been playing since the age of two when his neural net became fully upgraded.

"Dad ... don't be such a cyber-loser." He says, rising from the table, Mountain Dew in hand, the can sweating. He saunters back over to the couch, reconnects his neural net, and goes back to fragging an undeveloped country in the middle east with his friends.

I would sit at the table, and attempt to play "Chutes and Ladders" by myself. Maybe Emmy would want to play, who knows?

I just hope to bridge the gap between technology and family with my kids, as every year, kids get more plugged into the internet, losing what it is to be a person, in a sense. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't know, I'd like to instill a familial responsibility and love in my children in the ever-growing and deepening void of technology.