First thing in the morning you line up against the hallway wall for a surprise field trip. Your grade gets this mystery field trips often. Usually they end up at parks or museum. Everyone in the line mumurs confusion. Jake Turnip says that you are going to the zoo. When he says it, he’s so sure that clenches both of his little fat hands. So that’s what you believe.

As you climb aboard you see the French girl sitting by herself, so you sit with her. Immediately you know that this was a mistake. From the back of the bus, you hear your name start to get chanted. You look back and see Matt Murphy and Randy Dugan gleefully laughing and pointing at you.

“… and the French girl sitting in a car. E – M – B – R – A – S – S – E – R!”

Randy Dugan is too smart for his own good.

Neither of you say much. You just look out the window. She keeps a little smile on her face the whole time as if she knows something in French that you can’t translate. Eventually the bus squeals to a halt and you pile off.

You are taken into a large factory and given little white jumpsuits and Goggles. A small patch with a cartoon brain on it and the words “Solution Robotique” are on each of your breast pockets.

On the floor of the factory, you have to keep your hands to your sides. Large robotic arms whirr and crash around you. They solder and lift parts moving slowly down a conveyer belt. You are surprised by how clunky they seem. They jerk violently before they move, as if they are being jarred awake from a deep sleep. These aren’t the robots set to waltz music on the science shows. These aren’t even lawnmowers.

The French girl’s father shows you around. He is tall and thin and has a long and thin nose. You feel like half his voice comes out of his mouth and the other half is split between each nostril. You find it hard to hear his thick French accent over the loud racket of the production line. Finally he asks if you have any questions. You raise your hand.

Do you have any robots with legs? you ask.

“Yes, we have not made legs,” he smiles a fatherly smile. “But you see, we have no robot pants. If I made them legs, they would be, how you say, porky-piggin’ it.'”

The French father laughs at himself but the French girl looks embarrassed. “It is a little joke, you see,” she whispers to you. “He thinks it’s funny that cartoons have no pants.”

After some confusion, Jake Turnip speaks up.

“Do you think robots will have legs in the future?”

“The future?” The French father puts a finger to his lips and taps them, three, four, five times. He gives a dark look down the convulsive assembly line. Then he smiles. “The future is a strange and unpredictable place, full of twisted cyborg versions of people you loved and will then struggle to see any remaining humanity in.”

Even as a child, you recognize that this is an odd thing to say to children.

The science filmstrip clicks to life. A little speaker plays busy blown out music. You try to keep your eyes open. You always fall asleep during these things.

Two children sit on their living room floor. Outside the rain beats against their window. The look dejected at the outside. And then sit on the couch pouting. Suddenly an anthropomorphic cartoon brain pops on the screen. It delights them with a little dance, then it regals them with a brass and friendly speech.

Imagination! It can make water flow uphill. It can make the sky harden and your food taste like candy. Imagination has the power to take you anywhere – daydreams, fantasy, fiction and delusion – all countries where your imagination toils.

But have you ever wondered where your imagination comes from. Does inspiration strike you from some far off land where every fancy is fact? Are your hopes birthed from the same malignant pregnancy as your nightmares? If you fell down the stairs and cracked your skull open would all sorts of little ideas crawl out and scamper around?

The answer to all of these questions and more is no. But that shouldn’t stop you from thinking them. Imagination has the power to make us question all sorts of things. Imagining something then refuting it is called the scientific method.

You see, Billy, man wasn’t given plans to go to the moon. First he had to imagine it. In 1902, 67 years before Neil Armstrong, Georges Méliès filmed men taking a rocket to the moon in one of the first motion pictures.

It may have taken decades but it’s pioneers of the mind that lead us to try to create new ways of doing things.

Tests have shown that imagination uses occipital, frontoparietal, posterior parietal, precuneus, and dorsolateral prefrontal regions of the brain. There’s very little you can’t do when you use that much of your brain is there?

What’s that, Wilma? Do dogs imagjne? Maybe a new meal or a fresh piece of meat, but probably not in the way that we do. Dogs forget where they are going halfway into a room often. They want nothing more than a good scratch behind the ears and to chase the neighborhood tomcat. Perhaps a dog imagines a really long flight of stairs he saw once, but not the way we do.

Take Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He invented the submarine. Without Jules imagination, the Germans would have never had the navy strength it used to kill thousands of good allies soldiers during World War II.

So be glad dogs can’t imagine or they might find some way to be our masters.

What’s that father? Imagination is for kids only? I can’t imagine Mother feels the same way.

Maybe try to do a little exploration yourself. You might find yourself in a new place before you fall asleep.

 The lights of the room are already on when you raise your head from your desk. You’ve drooled all over your arm and pencil again. You aren’t sure what part of the movie you dreamt and what part happened. Oh well. Imagination!

About two blocks short of school, your mom pulls into an alleyway.

“Get out here and walk the last two blocks.”

Why?

“Don’t forget your lunch.” She hands you the bag.

I already have my …

“Take the bag.”

You walk down the street in the early morning carrying two lunch bags. A dark wind picks up causing a cloud of maple seeds to cascade around you. From nowhere, a tan Delta 88 Oldsmobile squeals into the driveway directly in your path. Two men, both their faces covered with ski masks, jump from the car and pull you into the backseat. Behind the wheel of the car sits Ms. McCallister in a shiny black jumpsuit.

“Buckle in kiddo,” she says, backing out of the driveway. “The ride is going to get bumpy.”

As the Olds shifts into drive, someone rear-ends the car hard. You look out the back window and see your Mom chomping on a cigarillo and driving with a small handgun pointed out the back window. Bullets fly. Ms. McCallister races down the block, taking skidding turns through busy intersections.

“We may have to drop him,” she yells to the thugs in back. “What’s he got?”

The two men dig into your lunch bag. They open your thermos and pour its soup out the window. You hear your mom swerve to miss. They peel back the bread from your peanut butter sandwich and find nothing inside. The entire bag of baby carrots is thrown to bounce off the family Kuga hood.

“I can’t shake her!” yells McCallister. “What’s he got?”

“We didn’t find anything, Maggie?”

“Did you look in both bags?”

“Nah, just one, we’ll look in the other.”

“Christ. You know what they say, ‘A woman needs men like a fish needs …’ ”

At this moment, the car hits a small prius driven by a stunned priest. The Olds goes up on two wheels then skids onto the boardwalk of the beachside. The priest steps from his automobile shaken, looks both ways, then looks to the heavens and crosses himself.

Your mother appears one block later, driving the Kuga up the granite steps of a park entrance.

“Damn It! I thought we lost the bitch!” one of the thugs shouts.

A meek voice comes from the front seat. “Am I going to kindergarten today?”

“Shut up, Tommy,” says Ms. McCallister. “Mommy’s gotta shake the fuzz.”

Hot dog vendors, roller skaters, women walking dogs, traffic cops – all of them barely jump from the way of the speeding vehicles. Three police cars join the back of the chase.

Ms. McCallister gets to the end of the boardwalk and bursts through the gates of a raising drawbridge. She clears easily. Your mother barely clears, as the police cars veer over the edge and into the water.

“Maggie, we found it!” one of the thugs reaches from the holds up a sapphire the size of a kiwi.

“Looks like this is where you get dropped off,” the other thug says. He grabs you by your collar and reaches for the door handle.

Wham! Your mother is on Ms. McCallister’s back fender. Wham! The Olds is jolted sideways and spins 180 degrees. You are thrown loose from the thugs. Wham! The Old runs into a parked car and both thugs are thrown through the front windshield.

Two police are at the car with guns drawn. “Freeze! Nobody move.”

Your mother storms up to the car and pulls you from the backseat. She removes her sunglasses and bends down, exhaling smoke in your face. “Are you okay now?” she asks.

I think so. 

“Do you still want to hide in the back seat and find out what I do?”

No, you say, no. Not really.

“Good. Remember that. I love you more than anything.”

Your mom turns back to Ms. McCallister as she’s getting loaded into the police van. She slowly looks her ripped and bloodied jumpsuit up and down.

“Jesus, Maggie,” she says. “Who gets arrested while wearing that.”

She tosses the cigarillo to the ground, puts her sunglasses back on, and walks back to the Kuga. It’s time to get to school.

Some things are not meant to be remembered.

You sneak on your Dad and his friends while they play soft jazz in the garage. Everything smells funny. They seem to be having a good time. Your father is holding down the beat on the drums. When he sees you, he calls you over to stand next to him.

“You see, son,” he begins. “An old jazz shuffle, like I’m playing now, isn’t that different from what your generation calls ‘rap.’ Here, let me show you.

“First I’m going to emphasize the back beat…

“Now I’m going to add the kick drum to the first and third …

“Then I’m going to switch to the high hat and simplify the beat. I want to keep the swing feel under it …

“You feeling that? Now Frank over here is going to use a deeper bass line …

“Ah yeah. You feeling it. I’m feeling the flow. This shit is tight, dawg. You know what’s about to happen? A rappin’.”

Your Dad unleashes what may be the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You will always look back at this moment whenever anyone asks you when the most embarrassed you ever felt was, but you’ll never mention it. You won’t – can’t – begin to try to explain the horror that you feel listening to your father freestyle about a local grocery store over a bunch of his jazz musician friends trying to play hip hop music.

Dad. Dad. Dad! Please stop!

The music grinds to a halt. Your father and his friends don’t even make eye contact with each other afterward. A half-minute of silence passes. Then Dad says, “Let’s never talk about this again. Let’s pretend like this never happened.”

From then on, you feel relieved whenever your father sticks to playing smooth jazz.

(Special thanks to the people that contributed to this affront to all that is decent in music.)

The phone rings and rings and rings and rings. You run down the stairs, your socks slipping on the wooden steps. “Don’t answer it,” your mom calls, but you’ve already put the handle to your ear.

“Hello, this is Stacy from Ameritech calling. Are you the primary account holder or is the primary account holder at home?”

“I’m the primary account holder,” you say.

“I’m sorry. But we’re looking for the person that pays the bills. Is your mother or father at home?”

“I am the father. My voice is high, yes, but I’m not a child.”

“Excuse me, sir. I didn’t mean to …”

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t make assumptions. I was in an automobile accident when I was twelve and it permanently damaged my vocal chords. As a result, they’ve never grown with me. Otherwise, I’m all man.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Well, now you have. No offense taken. Happens every time I pick up a phone. How can I help you?”

“Well, sir, we’re running a special promotion this month for new customers. Who is your current phone service provider?”

“New Bell.”

“And how do you like their service?”

“Well to be honest, Stacy, they offered us a special phone attachment like the ones you see on 60 Minutes. The ones that muffle your voice. You know when someone doesn’t want to be on the screen and they are in shadow and …”

“A muffler.”

“Is that the name? I don’t think that’s the name. I thought the name was something bigger like ‘Vocal Lowering Apparatus.'”

“I don’t know. Maybe New Bell has a different name for it. ”

“We’d like one of those, so when I answer the phone my voice doesn’t sound so high pitched. I’d like to not have to say that I’m not a child every time.”

“I’m not sure that Ameritech …”

“New Bell said they had one, but they never sent one along and I try to call them for one, but they always, well, they always think I’m a …”

click.

“Honey, who are you talking to?”

“Gotta go! Nice talking with you!”

click.

“Who is this?”

“Is this Stacy from Ameritech. Is this the primary account hold …”

click.