You're not my hero.

I have failed Calvin's hero test.

Not with cruelty. Not with a lack of compassion. Not with average everyday loser-dom.

But by not knowing how to kill the bad guys on Mario Galaxy 2.

Its shameful. Its obscene.

"how can you tell me to go to my room when you don't even know how to kill the bad guys?" his eyes seem to say.

See . . . and this is the truth . . . my dad could do everything.

He could play music, throw a baseball, build things out of wood, fix a car, play chess, accelerate through a tight corner in a Mazda pick-up truck, and most of all, he could teach me how to do those things too. And I learned to do those things. ('cept maybe the ball throwing, not so great with the ball throwing.)

But I learned to do other stuff too. I'm good at math and analytical thinking. I'm good at teaching people and getting them enthusiastic about the learning process. I can cook. And I can take an even tighter corner in my Toyota echo than the engineers ever thought possible. I know science and get just about every pop culture reference thrown in my direction.

However . . .

I did not know that you had to wiggle the controller on the Wii in order to kill the bad guys on MarioGalaxy 2.

And if I can't kill the bad guys, how am I ever going to be able to get the star at the end of the level?

And this is what Calvin needs right now.

A hero who can get the star.

I am not that hero.

And he knows it.

When Taylor was six we were driving in the car and he was asking me question after question. After a very long answer there was a pause . . .

"Josh . . . do you know everything?"

"Yes Taylor . . . yes I do."

And I had him fooled. I had him fooled through grammer school english and middle school math. I even had one of his teachers comment on how nice it was to have a parent who actually understood algebra. I had him fooled up until his first pre calculus class (a class I had dropped in college) when he handed me his homework. I looked at the symbols quizzically.

"I got nothing"

"Just look at it."

"I got nothing."

"Would you just look at it please?"

"Yeah . . . still nothing."

"Please, just look at it!" his tone getting more exasperated by the minute.

"Okay, yeah, uh huh?"

"And?"

"Nothin."

"God! I hate you! You're not my Dad! And you drive a stupid looking car."

I may have made that last line up, but the tone was the same. I stopped being the guy he turns to for help and became instead the asshole who insists he chew with his mouth closed at the dinner table.

Taylor, if you're reading this . . . seriously dude.

Lock it up.

But the point is is that Calvin doesn't want to know how to play music, or build things with wood. And he already knows how to accelerate through a tight turn (a blog I'm saving for later.) He won't do any cool math for at least another few years and he's way too interested in crashing cars to even think about fixing them yet.

What he needs is someone who can get the star.

What he needs is a hero.

And I know he'll come around. Sooner or later I'll be awesome Dad again. And maybe by that time I'll drive a cooler car.

No . . . scratch that.

Maybe by that time Toyota Echos will be cool.