KIDS PRETENDING
Len was showing me a You-tube video of his son goofing off with some friends. They looked like they were pretending to be The Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers, 21st-century style. I told Len that Jason is very talented and should consider studying improv and sketch comedy. “Why don’t you tell him yourself? He’s standing right in back of you,” he chuckled. I turned around. There Jason was, making one of his classic clown faces at me. “Hey, dude, you’re pretty good!” I said. “Thanks, Mr. Eversnoot,” he mumbled humbly. “How many videos do you have now—that is, of you?” “Oh, about 90 or so,” he said, still sounding a bit modest. Ninety! Whoa. “How do you ever keep all these little flicks on the computer?” “Well, we have DSL—“ “No, I know, but I mean don’t you run out of room for all these—“ “Are you kidding! We’ve only used up about 1 percent of all our storage space on here,” crowed Len proudly. “We could probably put every single You-tube movie ever made thus far on, and still only use half of that storage.” “Oh Dad, come on, that’s an exaggeration,” Jason complained. “I don’t think so, Jace,” Len insisted. “When I called up Mort at Computer Heaven and asked him for a data storage solution at the best possible price with the biggest memory system, he didn’t let me down.” Jason didn’t reply. He had already run upstairs and right out the door again to make another video.