So once again, This Man and my son, D found ourselves downtown waiting to get our hair cut. There's really nothing significant about that, however it was the conversations that he and I had on the way to the barbershop that let This Man know that sometimes he and I are on two different planes.
As we were riding in the car, D was in the passenger seat totally engrossed in his Gameboy, oblivious to the stream of obsenities that This Man was screaming while we were in traffic. Suddenly without warning, D begins, " Dad, look. I named this character, The Thing just like in the movie." He was indicating for me to look at the screen. Apparently, while playing Pokemon, you're supposed to name the characters or some shit like that. I still don't know.
"Huh? What movie?"
"Don't you remember? The Fantastic 4. " We'd seen that movie opening night and he hadn't stopped talking about it since. And while This Man thought that movie sucked; D was a complete and total fan and would go and see the movie again, if someone offered to take him.
"Oh yeah. Um, what game are you playing?" I asked.
"Pokemon." He said as if I knew all along.
But I didn't. The thing about This Man is I've never been a big fan of video games. To me, they're a waste of time and while I'd rather read a book rather than sit in front of a digital game. Whereas my son prefers video games instead of reading, cartoons instead of creative art or noise over silence, I'd finally realized that while we are the exact same in physical appearance, he and I are two totally different men. We even sometimes speak different languages and that's how things get lost in translation.
So I had no clue what he was talking about as far as Pokemon went but I wanted to test him and see if he was as concerned about This Man's issues as I was. So when D went back to playing his game, I started with, " I got a new Juicy Couture shirt from Neiman Marcus today. It was on sale and then on top of that, they took an additional 25% off--so I got it for practically nothing."
I beamed. At that moment, D looked up at me with a cloud of confusion on his face and said, loud and clear, "Huh?"

Mahalo

(it's obvious--even in the top photo that I took. Whereas I'm drafting a rough copy of this post, my son engaged himself in his Gameboy while we both waited to get our hair cuts)