This has been a season of transforming for us. I’m not referring to Poppy’s final summer in elementary school or the courtyard of our home evolving from a dirt patch resembling Pigpen’s playpen to something closer to the pebble-infused grounds owned by people who wear loafers when they sit outside and read the newspaper. The metamorphosis began when London and I went with another father/son combo to see Transformers, the summer blockbuster. After a slow beginning (and very loud middle and what some might call an end), cars, trucks and imported radios turned into robots and back again faster than I could ever do sitting on the floor at Christmas with instructions in five languages curling at my feet.
London and his friend Dylan adored the cinematic mess so much that they jetted off to his house to extend the convoluted storyline. I imagined that Dylan’s floor would soon be littered with the toasters, blenders and curling irons the boys had collected and, after a few orders falling on deaf heating elements, they’d try to mobilize their own army to take over the pantry.
There is a scene in the film where Samuel Witwicky (a name more at home in a cricket match than in an action movie) first sees his car transform into an alien robot. Besides using his cell phone to video the event for YouTube, he does that clumsy backpedal thing as if he’s trying to learn the moonwalk after 10 shots of Jack Daniels. I had the same experience opening a box for London in our living room. The parcel had been sent by my father as a late birthday gift. After I had sliced the seam with a steak knife, London folded open the flaps to reveal what appeared to be a plastic replica of the head of a giant insect.
“Oh my god!” London screamed. “It’s Optimus Prime!” For those of you who think Optimus Prime sounds like a long distance phone plan, you should know he (it?) is the leader of the Autobots, the white hats of the Transformers mechanical melodrama. What had invaded our home was a helmet that London quickly plopped onto his head.
“Can you breathe in that thing?” I asked.
The voice that came out was not of this earth or my son. It sounded like a combination of bad cell phone reception and electrocution. “Prepare to die,” the voice told me and I did because I knew, much like the Decepticon bad guys had in the film, electronic toys take over our lives—at least until the batteries wear out and we just can’t seem to locate the replacements.
London wore the helmet all over the house. He didn’t remove it to dutifully thank his grandfather over the phone although, just like his grandfather, the helmet was made more for speaking than for listening. London even lugged his new head to a conference I was attending and that’s when I realized the power of transformation. Everyone wanted to try on the damn thing—from the freshly tattooed daughter of a friend to a woman from high society who struck a cheesecake pose while a voltaic voice said “Hullo dahling” to her over-stimulated husband. I half-expected the old man to slip London a sawbuck for a few hours rental.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said and grabbed Optimus Prime by the base of his skull. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I wore this to the bank? Commune with the ATM!”
I slipped the head armor on. It was darker than I expected and stifling, like being trapped inside Rush Limbaugh. “Better, I could wear it at the drive up. Can you imagine what the teller could see through her computer screen? I could be the machine that speaks to machines!” Laughing, I could unfortunately smell my own breath.
“You’d get arrested,” my wife said almost mechanically, accustomed to my crazy ideas and manic epiphanies. Before I could object, I started to feel lightheaded so I slipped the skid lid off and handed it back to London.
“Power down,” I reminded myself. “Power down.”