Man on the Moon

“Aie, I want to bas (sit) on moon.” Chip declares in his Minglish from his vantage point. The mother, Chip and I are returning home after getting Chip’s mop trimmed to civilized standards. It is only six in the evening, but it is already quite dark and Chip, has been following the glowing crescent in the sky as we head home. Every time Chip sees the moon, he wants to sit on it. This has been happening for a few months now. The first time he said it, I was overcome with joy. My son, the astronaut. Going to the moon and mars and beyond. Thrilling.

But then, when this started to happen several times every evening, the novelty soon faded and I tried to make deals with him for a trip to the moon. “You want to go on the moon, Chip?” I would ask. “Yes.” He would reply. “Then, you have to stop crying when you go to school. They don’t allow crying kids on the moon.” He would cry, in the morning anyway, telling me he did not want the school and he did not want to sit on the moon. “You want to go on the moon, Chip?” I would ask later in the evening. “Yes.” He would reply. “Then, you have to stop doing poo-poo in the diapers. They don’t have diapers on moon.” But he would still do poo-poo in his diapers and repeat “No, diapee on moon, Aie?” When I finally realized, my tactic was not working very well, I decided to tell him the truth. . “You want to go on the moon, Chip?” I asked. “Yes.” Chip replied. “Then you have to go to the school, then to college, then to NASA and then you can go to the moon.”

When chip mentions the moon on quiet evenings like these, I inevitably remember the incident I have been trying so hard to forget. Chip’s fascination with the moon can border on the slightly loony. Well, sometimes anyway, if not always. This summer, the mother, the father, Chip and I went to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. This was Chip’s first trip and he was fascinated with the airplanes. After having examined them in detail, we went down to see the space flights, among them the mighty Space Shuttle. I told Chip this airplane went to the moon.^* That was a mistake. A huge mistake. Chip darted towards the massive Space Shuttle. Following his heels, I managed to grab him just as he was about to dive under the barricade. “Chip, not this airplane, but airplanes like this can take you to the moon.” I chided. But he would not hear of it. He wrestled with me and threw a full blown tantrum, turning heads as he loudly proclaimed in broken English, “I want moon, I want airplane moon.” My mother and I tried to pacify him, he was so hell bent on going inside the space shuttle, I decided to take him home while my parents enjoyed the museum in peace. While we were sorting our things amidst Chip’s angry mayhem, my mother, what in hindsight would turn out to be another mistake, gave him his little toy car in the hope of pacifying him. But the furious Chip, took the car and hurled it with full force at the Space Shuttle. I completely froze as I saw the little piece of metal flying towards the prized shuttle. Fortunately, the car missed the shuttle and the bystanders. I apologized to whoever was in sight and ran with the screaming toddler out of the museum.

He has grown up since that incident. Has mellowed down a bit. Is open to reason. “How do you get to the moon, Chip?” I am asking him as we speed down the dark road. “Shalaa (school), college, NASA, mag(then) moon.” He replies in a pat. It’s a long road, but he doesn’t know that yet.


^*aside: When I narrated this incident to BigGeek that day, he stared at me in horror. Only to say this in his supreme geekiness, “You told him the Space Shuttle goes to the moon? You know it goes only to the International Space Station, don't you? Now only if they could find a way to build an elevator from here to the space station, space flights to the moon would require much less energy. You should read Fountains of Paradise in which Clarke…..”