Step One: Video Games (or Stop Mocking Me and Fetch My Ducks You Stupid Dog!)

In order to develop hand-eye coordination, relieve stress, and defeat the alien invaders, men are often required to dedicate their time and energies to video games.  This can be a highly rewarding and incredibly frustrating venture, yet we still all must go through it.  Pick your poison: Xbox, Playstation, Wii, Atari, anything will do.  To those in the know, your choice of controller can say a lot about you.

Fighter Pilot                                                    Wizard                                                                 Groovy

For his 4th birthday, my son was given a Spongebob video game.  You've seen them: the box with a joystick you plug directly into the TV.  I am an Xbox devotee, so when asked if he could play his game, I was all over it!  I plugged it in and got him set up to apparently karate-chop jellyfish, which is how Aquaman first achieved fame before he invented wall-mounted singing fish (citation needed).

One day I will evolve into Larry the Cable Guy!

With the reflexes of a toddler, he tried to dispense judo justice to evil jellyfish, but Spongebob was too busy spazzing out on empty air to actually make contact.  After the twentieth time Spongebob was shocked into a reset screen, he was way past being done.  He handed me the game and decided watching a cartoon was way better.  At first, I tried to convince him to try again.  "If at first you don't succeed..." and all that jazz, but then I remembered the games that vexed me to no end when I was younger and how the memory still makes me want to dragon kick something so hard a voice from nowhere calls for a Fatality.

This wall's skull and spinal cord are toast!

First, there was Duck Hunt.  Anybody that had a Nintendo had this game, and I'm sure 99% of those people stood right in front of the TV screen to minimize misses.  Hit your mark, and your faithful canine friend fetches your ducks to cheer your victory.  Miss and this smug little Mumbly wanna-be snickers and mocks you with his grating electro-chuckle.  The worst part is that you are left standing there with a gun in your hand watching this stupid dog laugh at your feeble attempt at marksmanship, and you are completely powerless to stop him.

I'm right next to the screen!  Why won't this dog die!?!

The second game was this close to being an all-time great: Battletoads.  Three frogs travel space and fight galactic despots with karate and size-changing fists.  I think they host a struggling variety show in a run-down theater and date pigs in their downtime.

Hi-Ho!  This is YOUR DOOM!

The level that got me furious was the Battlecar obstacle course.  Ramps, barriers, floating barriers, and crazy speed all led to one thing: a desire to run down the game designers.  This is a famously difficult level.  I don't even know what happens after this level because I never beat it.  My driving was less Tokyo Drift and more Toonces the Cat.

What?!  I was hitting the A button!  AARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

So I guess I'll have to guide my son through this early setback, and slowly bring him along in his use of crowbars, sniper rifles, and mushrooms that magically give him a flying raccoon suit.  That way, one day we can enjoy these games together as father and son, and I can teach him how to lose with dignity and win with grace. 

You just got pwned by Daddy!  Now go clean your room while I do my victory dance, loser!

If that doesn't work, I'll just have to invent a real life Game Genie.