The Pinewood Derby

Ilana Long’s humorous book “The Binky Conspiracy” is available on Amazon.com. It makes a great baby shower gift!

A lot of eight year old boys are engineering demons. Give ‘em an awl and a chisel, and they can turn a block of wood into a racing rocket. It seems they are experts at whittling, masters of weights and balances, and geniuses when it comes to aerodynamic design. Pay no attention to the beaming 47 year-old Boeing engineer behind the curtain.

It was that time of year: The Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. For this much touted, much anticipated event, my boy, Benji, was handed a block of wood, four nails and a set of black, plastic wheels. With these few items, magic would be made.

Benji eagerly tore the tape off the materials box, spread the pieces apart and grabbed a paper and pencil. He began sketching his design. In his eight-year-old zeal, his drawing was complete with angles of all kinds, mountains and valleys, nooks and crannies, devilish details and extravagant proportions. His intricate design would have taken twenty of Santa’s elves utilizing miniature jigsaws hours of work under a microscope. It would have been like writing the yellow pages on a grain of rice.

My hubby, Steve, suggested, “Maybe you want to simplify it.” Translation: “I need to be able to cut it with a screwdriver and a hammer, as we have none of the necessary building materials, and besides, I’m a Jew and what the heck am I supposed to know about woodworking. The last good Jewish carpenter was Jesus, and look what happened to him.”

So, the design was modified. Ultimately, the new shape emerged as a rectangular block with a slight slope at the front, and an indention toward the middle. Benji spent an hour in the garage, bent over the garbage bin, sanding the block to chunky, jagged perfection.

Steve had the idea that it would be really cool if it looked kind of like a rocket. So we got Benji’s last Scout kit project; a wooden rocket, and my husband inelegantly ripped off the fins. Then, Benji pounded them haphazardly onto the sides of the car, so it looked rather like a non-flying version of Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang. They then had to gouge holes in the bottom to meet the weight limits. The car was now Cub Scout Kosher.

Just when I thought our project was complete . . . “What about painting it?” Benji asked. I excavated the shelves in the garage to find the remnants of my acrylic paints, the detritus of an art hobby long forgotten. Prying open the tool box filled with mostly desiccated paints, I resurrected two lone tubes of color. One was a dull, mustard yellow, the other a purplish black. The latter, when applied, reminded me of the color a bruise turns on day two. I hoped it wasn’t foreboding.
Benji was thrilled. “Husky colors!” he shouted. The shades I had found were poor cousins of the bold purple and gold of the University of Washington, but Benji’s enthusiasm was unabated. He was already in process of applying the paint in broad brushstrokes. His pa, a proud alumnus, offered encouragement and touched up the edges with a thin brush. The final touches were ‘decals’ added after my failed attempts to draw a husky on scratch paper. We printed off the UW emblem and the husky icon, glued them on, and stepped back to admire our handiwork.

I then realized that we should have used enameled paint, which stays glossy, rather than the flat
acrylic paint, which made the car look like it had just spun its way through a dust storm in an ashtray. I came up with the brilliant idea of coating it with clear nail polish. Benji unscrewed the top, recoiled at the smell, and began touching up the car. I was hoping for a pedicure, but it never happened. Now the car looked dusty and wet. But we all couldn’t be prouder. In our eyes, Husky Fever was sleek, chic, with that certain mystique.

The evening of the derby, we barely pecked at our spaghetti, eagerly anticipating our (oops, I mean Benji’s) glorious race car success. Benji tucked in his Wolf Cub shirt, adjusted his yellow kerchief and made sure his cap was on perfectly straight. With confidence in his step, he checked in his car with the judges.

Okay, here I’m gonna say it. And Benji, darling, when you read this, know I am so proud of you and all that you accomplish. But our car was the worst car there. We put so much love into it, but it was a Yugo to others’ Maseratis. Lined up next to Benji’s Husky Fever car, there was the Orange Crush: sleek and focused. There was Zinger, Yellow Jacket, the Vaporizer, Wicked Cobra, oh I could go on. The other cars were finely chiseled racing machines of the highest quality. My wonderful son grinned and beamed as he proudly placed his duckling next to these swans.

The race track sloped down the center of the gym. Each car would compete in four heats. We took our seats among the boys, many of whom could not contain their excitement. Boys were sitting on their hands to keep them still, jumping up and down like oil in a hot pan, squirming like worms on a fish hook; Antsy boys in uniforms, all holding their breath and praying for their cars.

Finally, it was Husky Fever’s turn. It raced down the track at lightening speed. Despite its cumbersome appearance, it was surprisingly fast, and finished well in its first two heats. Benji, generally calm, was now also exploding from his seat to cheer on his car.

We squared off in the third heat against some tough competition: On track one,
The Green Streak. Poised on tracks two and three were Raptor and Firebird. On
track four, Husky Fever waited patiently. Then, they were off. The cars raced down
the slope. Suddenly, Husky Fever slowed, and rolled to an awkward, disappointing
finish. A wheel had popped off, and the older Boy Scouts were consulting the
judges on the legality of allowing it to continue. The car was allowed to proceed,
and Steve shamefully had to go to the judges table to request some hot glue and a
bandage for his wounded pride.

And then it was the final preliminary heat. A limping Husky Fever tore wildly down the track, careened sideways into the finish rail, and triple flipped off of the track into the astonished crowd. It was an exciting and terrifying disaster. The car was done for, finished, kaput. Benji raced to cradle his dying block of pinewood. And rather than sobbing into its crushed chassis, he beamed and announced, “That was so cool!”

We watched the finals as The Terminator destroyed Silver Bullet, Mean Machine and Snow White (clearly, someone’s mom had a hand in that one.) The fastest car was obviously designed by a child with a Ph.D. in aerodynamic engineering. Most Creative went to the Humvee decorated with gum wrappers. And Benji’s went home with an award, too. When he came home, he was all smiles, and hung it proudly over his bed. It reads, “Least Likely to Get a Speeding Ticket”.

THE BINKY CONSPIRACY

THE BINKY CONSPIRACY
by Ilana Long

Available at Amazon.com


Also available at:.

CF Kids at Crossroads in Bellevue

Check out:
http://www.twinparenthood.com
for my guest blog!

• Laugh along with Ilana Long's delightfully hilarious stories of the manic moments of motherhood. Long shares the unbelievable, true-life tales of raising her twins and illustrates them with whimsical cartoons. In "The Binky Conspiracy" Long digs under the car seat for a missing pacifier, and rescues a toddler from eating a urinal cake. Each story will make practiced parents smile knowingly at mothering memories, and new moms insist, "That will never be me." Just wait and see!

A great gift for any mom, new or experienced!

• Contact Ilana: ilanalong@hotmail.com

Check out what the media has to say about "The Binky Conspiracy"

• Bellevue Reporter
• The JT News

READ AN EXCERPT BELOW:

All in the Training

“C’mon, Hon. They’ll pick it up at their own pace. I promise they won’t go to their Microsoft interviews still sucking their thumbs and wearing diapers.”

“Look, let’s try it my way. If they’re not potty trained within the week,” he concedes, “we’ll reassess it."

For each child, I purchase three pairs of outrageously overpriced training underpants, imagining, in my naiveté, that these will last three days. We have waited until the heat of summer in their second year, so that we can let them run around naked on the back deck, and, hopefully, become aware of the fact that they are peeing. We fill up a little wading pool for them to play in, and explain the rules.

“Alright. No peeing in the pool. If you need to pee, go and sit on the potty,” I say, gesturing to the lovely addition to our outdoor patio furniture.

“Okay,” says Benji as he is peeing out a stream into the pool. “Oh, look. I peed!” He is thrilled with this visible action that he is now able to perform with his useful equipment.
Not to be outdone, Marina exclaims, “Ohp.” Bowing her legs, she opens her eyes wide with surprise, “I can pee, too!”

“Run to the potty. Run. Run!” I shout, knowing full well this is a futile effort. The damage is done. Simultaneously, they race to the potty chair and in a hilarious game of musical chair, they try to sit on top of each other.

“Me first,” says Benji, and seven seconds later, “Nope. I can’t pee.”

That afternoon, we go through all six pairs of underwear. I race to Target and buy 12 more pairs. They are ridiculously pricey. We have to get a second mortgage on the house.
That night, we put the kids to bed in underpants. I know. Well, now I know. You could have told me earlier that most toddlers sleep in diapers.

The next morning….success! Benji’s pee actually ends up in the potty (not around it, under it, or on Mommy’s shoe). We jump up and down shouting, “Yay, Benji! Benji peed in the potty,” like a family of deranged village idiots. We call the grandparents and repeat the process. They shout over the speakerphone, “Wow, that’s terrific!” as if he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. And then Marina succeeds, too. And more ecstasy and stickers on charts and promises of lollipops for going number two.

We become potty-obsessed. We have set up two potties in each bathroom for Simultaneous Pee Fests. On Ebay, we order a folding, portable, plastic seat insert for public toilets. (It arrives well after the hooplah, and pinches, anyway.) We carry a potty in the trunk of the car, and haul it with us to parks and playgrounds where restrooms are scarce. We have late night debates on the dueling merits of the potty ring vs. the floor model. In the car, we put plastic bags on the carseats, and under the driver’s seat we stow rolls of paper towels (the quicker-soaker-upper) and spare (gender-generic) pants and underwear. In the first week, we launder constantly – not just pants and undies, but socks, shoes, and shirts. Resolve carpet cleaner is our new best friend. The pee is ubiquitous.

We ride the potty roller coaster. There are successes and accidents. At the Issaquah Salmon Days Festival, I change a miserable, wet child on the counter of the police station, and sheepishly ask if we can use the restroom. At Kelsey Creek Park, the kids turn their lips down when offered the services of the Honey Pot Porta-John. Finally, Benji concedes. Suddenly, he is holding something and saying, “Mom, what’s this?”

It is the urinal cake. I scream “Drop it! Drop it,” like it is a live grenade. (Well, maybe that’s not the exact metaphor…) He does and begins to cry. I feel like a creep. I realize, as I dig in my bag for some Purell, that I have probably just yanked the brakes on the potty train-ing.

Happily, the children have a new potty interest. They are fascinated by the size and shape of their poop in the potty. They have inherited this trait from their father, who has been known to exclaim, “Honey, come quick. You gotta see this!” Like images in a cloud, Benji and Marina see sculpted bunnies and bunches of grapes. One day, Marina shouted cheerfully, “Come quick!” We race into the bathroom. Pointing in the toilet she says, “See? A Mommy poop, a Daddy poop and two teeny, tiny babies.”

Benji is thrilled. “You pooped a whole family!” We flush, but the smaller pooplets don’t go down. “Oh, no! The Mommy and Daddy left without their babies!”

“Don’t worry,” Marina consoles. “They went to work. They’ll be back soon.” The remaining pellets are still swirling in the bowl. “See? They’re fine. They’re playing tag.”

Now, nearly a year later, our potty training travails are a mere glimmer. Like pregnancy and 2 a.m. feedings, our systems are trained to forget the pain-in-the-tush aspects of potty training, so that we will have the stupidity to go through it all over again for the sake of reproducing. So, when my friend Sylvia’s son was trudging through his first day of training, and his 16th pair of underwear, she asked me, “Was it this hard with your kids?” Thinking about the Porta-John, I smiled and said, “Piece of cake.”