Beyblades and Mavericks

On our recent long drive we saw a lot of stuff. For me, stuff means cars. Lots of cars driving of course, but lots of cars sitting in yards along the road as well. One interesting car that I saw was a Ford Maverick. Probably a '79. It was sitting on blocks with the wheels off, but it looked pretty good. Not many of them around any more so I pointed it out to my wife. She had no idea what it was so I told her about it and what engines it could have had and just what I generally knew about this fairly obscure car. She turned to me and asked: "When are the kids birthdays?" This was a strange question and quite frankly felt like a trap. In truly heroic form I rattled them off and got every one right. Feeling like I'd dodged some sort of mysterious bullet, she then asked: "What years?" I had to admit that I had no idea. Well, I had a vague idea and could have worked it out with some math, but I really didn't know. I did not dodge the bullet after all.

My wife wondered how it was possible that I could remember a full page of information about some fairly obscure car that I'd never even sat in much less owned, and then I couldn't remember my kids own birthdays. It was a fair question. I do not have an answer.
A bit later in the week there was some present opening and a certain young boy tore away some paper to reveal a set of Beyblades. If you don't know (and I didn't) a beyblade is a top. It's a top with a launcher and interchangeable parts that is supposed to battle with other tops for supremacy of something. I'm still not clear what. They're pretty cool tops, but they're just tops. The kids love them. They know what powers they're supposed to have and whether they are offensive tops or defensive tops and the significance of spinning clockwise or counter clockwise. They have beyblade battles. They change out the parts to try and gain and advantage. They talk about them constantly. I finally broke down and asked them if they realized that they were just playing with tops. "They're not just tops daddy, they're beyblades!"
That's when my wife reminded me of the Ford Maverick that she used to trick me into feeling like an inadequate father. To her it was just a car. To her, most cars are just cars. To me they're all individual and special. Maybe beyblades are as awesome as my kids say they are and I just can't see it. I suspect that this isn't the only time this is going to happen. As my kids grow older and become teenagers I'm looking forward to wave after wave of things that I don't get. When that happens, I've just got to remind myself of that old Maverick up on blocks and grumble about 302's and positraction.