I'll Be Back

This is pretty much my kids
around electronics

Quite a while back, I wrote about how electronics were invading our family’s lives. I called that post “The Rise of the Machines.”

Little did I know at the time that back in April was just the dawn of the rise of the machines. That time was Terminator 1 – the kids and their Leap Pads were a low budget and bad acting affair. Their Arnold Schwarzenegger Cyborg desire to play Wii was menacing and tireless to be sure but nothing that couldn’t be handled by Linda Hamilton and me, and a huge industrial hydraulic press.

Unfortunately, our small victory over the electronics was short lived. The machines learned and rose and multiplied. Today the kids’ desire to be constantly inundated by electronics is Terminator 4’s Skynet – all knowing, all powerful. That one robot skeleton that attacked in the first installment has been replaced by armies of killer androids. They come in unending waves and attack from all sides. “Can I play Ipad?” says one from his evil skeletal maw, “What about Wii?” “Can I play on your phone in the car?” “Can I watch a show?”

There’s a scene in the HBO movie Stalin where it’s the middle of World War II and Josef Stalin is being shown a military map of the battles by his head general. Things are not going well, and the general tells Stalin that the Red Army is losing and retreating “here, here and here.” Stalin flies into a rage and starts screaming at the quaking general (who, since Stalin had executed all of his predecessors, had little grounds for debate) “I vill tell you vat ve vill do!” he screams, slamming the map at each location “ve vill attack zem HERE AND HERE AND HERE!!!”

That’s my kids: ve vill attack zem HERE AND HERE AND HERE!

Ve vill attack zem before they are awake, ve vill attack zem in their bed: “Can we play Scooby Doo on the Wii?”

Ve vill attack zem at Breakfast: “Can we watch a show?”

Ve Vill attack zem in ze car: “Can we play on your phones on the way to school?”

Ve Vill attack zem after school: “Can we play on our Leap Pads?”

Ve Vill attack zem before dinner: “Can we play on your computer?”

Ve Vill attack zem after dinner: “Can we play on Mommy’s Ipad?”

Andrea and I, the defenders, (the Nazis? God, this metaphor has gone astray!) are losing this war of attrition. Our meager forces are being ground to dust. Morale is low. We are suffering from trench foot, scarlet fever and dysentery. There are food and ammunition shortages. And I have to tell you, desertions are common. “Can’t you kids just go play with toys?” We beg, “Can’t you behave like normal children and play outside?”

But no. They are not normal children. They are tireless, relentless, future-cyborg-hopelessly-muddled-metaphor-with-communist-Russia-Red-Army electronics consuming armies.

Which leaves humanity with only one hope. We must send a freedom fighter back in time to destroy the early electronics and impregnate Sarah Connor. Even then, I think we are in for endless high-budget sequels. I can tell - every time I turn off the Wii I hear a faint phrase in a distinctly Austrian accent:

I’ll Be Back.