I have this pathetic fantasy about saving a little boy's life. Like we're on the busy curb, and the kid's ball bounces into the street or something, and he goes chasing after it, and there's a car speeding by that doesn't see him, and I dash out and grab the kid, and shield him with my body, and wrap up into a ball, and the car hits me, hits us, and we go off the windshield, and go flying into the air, and bounce on the pavement. And there you have it.

I fall limp like a pile of laundry. Cracked ribs. A spiral fracture of the skull maybe. But the kid is okay. Hysterical, the parents sprint in and grab the little boy up to find of course there's not a scratch on him. Traffic stops and people get out of their cars. Cellphones materialize in the palms of passersby to flood the 911 lines while I bleed unconcious on the pavement. That kind of thing.

The pathetic part of the fantasy is that every person who I want some kind of approval from: high school friends that are more successful than me (Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies), coworkers who don't respect me (you Tom Wilcox in accounts!), women. Mostly women. All the women I know and like are there and they witness this selfless, noble, spontaneous disregard for my own physical safety.

Why? Well, saving a little kid in front of anyone you've ever wanted to impress would probably forever relieve you of the burden of having to impress them ever again. Wanting to be witty and charming and liked by people, but instead being mostly awkward and clumsy and uncomfortable around them is ^**#ing exhausting. I just want to save a little kid's life and forever be known as Captain Awesome and not have to impress anyone ever again. Done and done. I'm The Kid Saver. My mettle isn't up for debate. Profuse apologies for physio-social and socio-conversational trivialisms are now a thing of the past so far as my person is concerned. Freedom is never having to say your sorry. True. But an even greater freedom exists in not having to try and get what's on the inside outside. This is what purple hearts and tattoo tears are for.

Sadly I'm finding my kid saving fantasy a little hard to make come true. I walk out to busy areas of the city -- touristy areas like Fisherman's Warf --places where parents take their children that are also in close promiximity to busy thoroughfares. And I'm out scoping for kids that might, just might, run into the middle of the street. And in my head I'm thinking "C'mon, c'mon Jimmy, let that superball get away from you. Why can't it just take an awkward bounce on a pebble or something. C'mon, there's a Prius coming! This would be an easy one! Run you ##$#er. Run!" Then there's the kids with Heelys. I keep waiting for a malfunction, or a knee cramp or something, that leads the kid to roll right off the sidewalk and into the street with little shocked eyes. But it doesn't happen. It seems the Heelys company has anticipated this potential scenario and constructed their product in such a way that the odds of it occuring would be in the millions somewhere. And little kids with superballs are surprisingly wary of oncomming traffic.

Lately I've been thinking of paying a kid to run in front of a car on purpose. But I'm having a hard time deciding on a price. I mean on the one hand, he's a kid, so I kinna wanna lowball him. Like think of how many superballs 10 bucks could buy you there sonny. That's like 30 %@^$ing superballs. That's like an orgy of superballs. On the other hand though, he is kind of, you know, risking his life. So I kinna wanna give him a whole check. Like a whole two weeks' worth of doe. Like hey Jimmy fifteen hundred bucks, you could start a college fund with that. All you gotta do is run in front of a Ford F150 that's doing 25mph and get saved. Nah, no F150s. We'll stick to Prius type cars to be a little safer. I mean the front end of a Prius has that kind of ovular arc to it that we'd probably just roll off of. And into the air. It'll be fun Jimmy. Like a rollercoaster. Except with blood. And lots of screaming and sirens at the end. %$^& Jimmy just help me out here. You got your whole life ahead of you. You'll understand when you're older.

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