The Doo Doo Catapult

Have you ever heard the story of the “Doo, Doo Catapult?” Most likely you haven't. It comes from a bedtime story made up when my son was very young. We would cuddle up for a bedtime story and let our imaginations run wild. There were no limits to the things we could do or the places we could go.

These stories were made up as we went along. I say we because he was involved in making up the story as much as I was. I would start the story and go until I got stuck and then ask a question like, “What do you think happen next, or what do you think they did?” He never failed to fill in the blanks with something imaginative for the story to continue. Many time the newly supplied information would take the story into some bizarre twist like the, “Doo Doo Catapult.”
I started a story about the first indoor toilet. It is a topic all little boys find to be endlessly fascinating. Anyway I was trying to explain how indoor plumbing worked in conjunction with the toilet and when I asked him what he thought they did before indoor plumbing and he came up with something called the Doo Doo catapult. Try working that into a story. Soon the catapult was doing the work of what indoor plumbing does only with much more excitement.  Quickly the story found us fighting off invading hordes, making them dodge the payloads of the Doo Doo catapult. I don’t recall the rest of the story but I do recall both us laughing till we hurt

It was a lot of fun and we did it for I don’t know how long, but one night, I told the last story. I don’t remember what night it was, or the name of the story, but there was a final story. It wasn’t planned. It just happened, without my even knowing it and now that time is past. There is no going back, my son has grown up and became a young man and now has a son of his own. I hope they will have stories of their own maybe even one that about the Doo, Doo catapult.

There are so many things in life that end like our story time; a child completes their last lesson and graduates. The man or woman completes the last assignment and they retire. We give our last smile, our last compliment, our last word of encouragement and do not realize that it was the last.
I wonder if we knew it was our last would we act any differently. Would we frown less and smile more, would we be less critical and praise more? What will come to mind of those who know us best when they think of us?

As I have grown older I would like to say it has become easy to accept the common everyday irritations of life with more grace and wisdom but I can’t. There are still too many times when my responses are down right silly. One area of wisdom that I have grown in is to realize long after a deed has been forgotten the way I respond will remembered. The way my wife does or doesn’t make the bed, mop the floor, or load the dishwasher is not nearly as important as the way I choose to respond.

I Know now it is an exercise in foolishness to think my life would be better if everyone would do things my way. To think I can somehow mold another’s behavior to suit my own personal desires is like thinking I can through psychic applied pressure influence the lottery. Applying outward pressures upon others to conform to our preconceived Ideas is a sure fire way to get in the crosshairs of the "Doo Doo Catapult." To love, forgive,and to have tolerance and patience is a far better way to live and persuade another human being.