Kipworld

Growing up, my favorite toys were Legos and cardboard boxes. I loved them because they could be anything.

With the Legos, I’d create spaceships and army bases. When I’d get a new set, I’d make whatever the instructions told me to make, play with it for a few hours and then rip it apart to make other things. With these new spaceships and structures, I’d lay out an intricate city that had to be taken down every week when the cleaning lady came to vacuum. Ideas for my creations came from my older brother’s aviation books and movies. I made my Lego guys into a crack squad of adventurers, ready to explore the stretches of my room and to fight against the evil GI Joes who would try to take it over. I played every day, sounding out episode after episode. If someone else would be in the room, I’d just sort of quietly mumble until they left and the characters could speak freely again.

Cardboard boxes were even better, because I could be the adventurer. My adopted Jewish grandfather owned a furniture store in downtown Milwaukee and every so often, he’d let me have a huge box or two. I’d make it into a spaceship or a fort (see a trend here?) by cutting portholes in the side. See, I shared a room with my older brother, who slept much later than I did, so I was always trying to make forts to block out the light. A room within a room. The height of my fortmaking prowess came in fifth grade. I turned the top bunk of my bunkbed into a virtually impregnable cardboard structure. The walls were boxes, not just sheets of cardboard. Styrofoam shims kept the light out of the cracks. There was even an electric lock on the sliding door so that only people who knew the secret could get in. Of course, it had to be taken down every week for the cleaning lady to change the sheets.

I mostly played by myself, but I really looked forward to playing with my older cousin Chien or my best friend Jason. Legos were better when more than two things could happen at a time. And it was much more convincing being a secret agent with a partner. Sharing imagination could be difficult at times. Jason and I would tell each other from time to time things like, “There was a landmine on that stair you just stepped on. Rewind!”

One of the saddest days of my young life was the day Chien told me that he wasn’t going to play Legos. No, he was going down to the basement to play Nintendo. He was too old for make believe games. I felt like I’d been slapped. Now, yes, I’d been the one to campaign to get a Nintendo (my parents finally giving in after much cajoling and wheedling). But I hadn’t meant for it to take over Lego time! That was sacrilege!

That was many years ago. In the years since, I’m almost sad to say that I’ve gone into the basement myself. I started to get into videogames in a big way. My parents never limited my Lego or cardboard box time, but they quickly set limits on videogame playing. Also, they never used Lego or box as punishment, but they would forbid me to play Nintendo upon youthful transgressions. I showed them, though. I made a cardboard Nintendo and imagined playing on that. Ha HA!

I didn’t stop playing Legos all at once, like Chien did. It just sort of faded as I traded in one set of imagined adventures for more guided ones. The adventures taking place onscreen, yet still in my control. Plus, when you play a videogame with another person, you’re perceiving the same adventure. Prevents those “oh, there was a landmine there” notifications. Plus, it was a little less vulnerable to ask a new friend to play videogames than to ask him to play with your GI Joes. I mean, we were 11 and 12 now. No longer babies.

I got better videogame systems and better games. I found that games crossed age boundaries when my dad proudly brought home Street Fighter II and we played for 3 hours. They even became less of a nerd thing to do with the advent of newer games. All of a sudden, I was talking about Bond strategies… with my friend Kate.

Flash forward to summer of my sophomore year. I was working downtown at Northwestern Hospital. My sister worked in the medical records section. Another guy at work and I had gone to lunch at Benihana’s for the 2$ sushi roll special. I couldn’t finish mine, so I decided to surprise my sister with a roll. We went into her office and I gave her the roll and she said, “Well, I was going to wait to tell you… but I guess I can do it now. I’m touched you thought of me, but pregnant women can’t have sushi.” Shock. I gave her a huge hug. Wow! My sister was going to be… a MOM.

As the due date approached, I thought a lot about being an uncle. Being an influence on a tiny little person throughout her life. I thought of all the uncles who’d been there for me, and what I loved and didn’t love about them. Pretty heady stuff.

At this time, I was playing a videogame called Black and White. It was this revolutionary new game from Peter Molyneux. In this game, you are a god on an island. You’re represented by a disembodied hand. With this hand, you interact with villagers. You can make crops grow, or you can throw them off a cliff. It’s all up to you to make them believe. The point of the game is to show that it’s really hard to be completely good (since the villagers are really fickle then) and really hard to be completely bad (because you’ll kill all your villagers). As the game progresses, the disembodied hand grows gold and gentle if you are mostly good and red and scaly if you aren’t. The revolutionary part of the game comes from your avatar. The avatar is a creature in the game that you don’t control, you teach. It was a mind of its own. Teaching is done by rewarding the avatar for good behavior (like helping crops grow) and punishing bad behavior (like sitting on villagers). Just like the hand, your avatar’s appearance changes based on how it acts.

So, I purchased Black and White when it came out, as it was to be revolutionary. I picked my avatar, a cow since I’m from Wisconsin. And I set out to be mostly good. I protected villagers. I helped them get food. I taught the cow how to fish for the village. I played insatiably for about a week. And then, I realized something. My avatar was evil. His eyes had turned red. His horns had become sharp. He was no longer fat, but a lean mean fighting bull. How had this happened? I’d tried to watch him. I’d punished him when he was eating all the village food. I’d rewarded him for dancing. But here he was evil.

Sure, I could’ve just started over, but some part of me wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It wasn’t just that I’d spent so much time with the cow already. But more that really, this was my fault. I’d screwed up. In parenting.

I began to freak out about the impending baby. What if I… turned her red and scaly? How could you be sure you were doing the right thing?

The baby was born. Kaylin. She was so small! As I held her for the first time, I locked my arms. I was not dropping this baby. I didn’t relax until I’d handed her off to the next person.

I was reading some websites about Black and White, and I found out that the initial release of the game had a bug. It was actually impossible to make the cow go good! I wasn’t a terrible person after all! I didn’t pick up the game again, though. It had put my mind through too much of a bind.

In the two years since Kaylin was born, I’ve seen her start to walk, talk and wrap the entire family around her little finger. My brother and I used to compete to see who her favorite uncle was. I won. Just kidding. She’s the most precocious kid you’ll ever see. She has an amazing imagination and she wants you to see it to.

I was always a little self conscious when I played with Kaylin. My brother didn’t seem to have any problems rolling around and making funny faces but I always felt like people were catching me speaking for my Legos again. And I’d grow kinda quiet and withdrawn.

But the last time I was home, Kaylin sat me down in the middle of the living room and served me “coffee” for about an hour out of a ricebowl. She’d spoon imaginary coffee into a plastic cup and bring it to me. I’d taste it, ask for cream and sugar, which she “dispensed” from a coaster. Then I’d pronounce it good and tasty, to her delight. She kept up a constant stream of chatter the whole time, every bit the perfect hostess. Fully invested in her make believe world enough to make me see it too. Grownups pay a good deal of money at ImprovOlympic to learn the same skill that is natural to a kid.

I can’t wait for her to be old enough to play with Legos and to make cardboard forts. Because they can be anything. And so can she.