The Dalai Lama Strikes Again

When I was a kid, I loved The Pink Panther Strikes Again with Peter Sellers. It’s the one where Inspector Clouseau’s loyal assistant, Cato, attacks him whenever possible so that Clouseau can practice warding off assassination attempts. If you haven’t seen it, picture really bad martial arts, complete destruction of private property, and a funny guy with a foreign accent. Kind of like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, only good.

Newt and Elfie have watched The Pink Panther — mainly the destroyed apartment scene — about 20 times. And now Newt has taken up the task of hiding and attacking Tenzin whenever he comes home. It all started out pretty simply — just jumping out from behind corners and scaring the bejesus out of Tenzin. Then things became rather sophisticated with Newt setting up distracting booby traps and putting his shoes in under piles of pillows to make it look like he was hiding there. Anyway, now the attacking has led to boxing and mixed martial arts matches. Tenzin gets on his knees (to make it fair), Elfie is the ref, and then she calls the winner (even stands in the middle of them and raises one person’s arm).

This was never, ever the scene when I was growing up. My brother and I would kind of wrestle (I’d “torture” him by holding him down and tickling his face with my hair — brutal). But Tenzin is the middle brother of three boys, all of whom beat the crap out of each other on a regular basis. Their most famous altercation was when his younger brother got mad and tried to clock him with “the bust of Christ” (Tenzin’s dad was a Lutheran minister — there was a lot of random, religious paraphernalia lying around).

It’s amazing what we “create” for out kids. Newt doesn’t have brothers, so Tenzin is apparently either consciously or subconsciously providing an experience that’s as close as possible to the one he had (minus the parts where they were constantly bickering, tossing the heads of statues at each other, and making their mother cry every day. . . yes, every day). And Tenzin’s not the only one who’s “making things happen.” I know that I’m slowly but surely turning into the “big holiday” person in our family (which goes directly counter to my nature). It’s the only way to fill the void left by my mom (and, yes, I can see how I need to seek therapy or something for this).

And our latest creation for the kids? Having to scrimp and save, just like we did when we were young (our problem in a nutshell: mortgage high, income low). I have fond and not-so-fond memories of drinking Shasta soda, buying tennis shoes at K-Mart, and going camping during every vacation. It’s funny because when I was a kid picturing my grown-up life, I always saw it as similar to my mom and dad’s. It wasn’t nearly as extravagant as ours (and most of the country’s) has been during the last generation. But now we’re having to downshift, and it’s been harder than I thought it would be (cue violins). The other day, Tenzin said he was actually feeling good about our whole situation because he thought he was getting a little “soft.” (I think in my imagination, I may have clocked him with the bust of Christ).

I’m apparently not to his stage of enlightenment yet (and, yes, his Dalai Lama nickname strikes again). I’m the bitchy wife who told him I like it better when I’m not stressed out about walking into Costco. I think what I really need is to get rid of some of the tension that’s been building up in me for the past few weeks. So I’m thinking, adult boxing match, later tonight. It’s no bust of Christ, but, hey, you can’t have everything.