The Gambler versus the Parent

The Gambler

Let me start with a story from when I was in grade school. I was probably in 1st grade, possibly 2nd, and I had just started learning to ride a bike without training wheels. My family lived in the housing of a private college campus, a relatively small and self-contained place, objectively, but to us “campus kids,” it was a pretty big place, full of adventure.

There are plenty of other stories to tell about that campus kid life, but this one is about the Time I was Hit by a Car Driven by Kenny Rogers.*

* Spoiler Alert: Not really Kenny Rogers

He didn’t look like this then, but this pic was too awesome not to post.

I was riding my bike among the buildings in an older part of campus, and took a corner around a particular building, headed the wrong way down a one way street. Turns out a car was headed the right way around the corner at the same time.

Again, I was just learning to ride–and have never been known for things like coordination and reflexes. I don’t know how much time there was to hit the brakes or swerve, but my inexperienced, 1st grade body did the best thing it could come up with and just slammed right into the front bumper of the car. I think I might have actually pitched forward onto the hood a bit, but memory does tend to dramatize these things.

Anyway, the driver did have reflexes, luckily, and had braked somewhat. He probably hadn’t been going that fast anyway. I was fine, just shaken up. Especially when I looked up at that driver as he got out of the car and it was Kenny Rogers.

Okay, okay. It wasn’t really Kenny Rogers. But my first grade self was at least half-convinced it was, even after my dad assured me it was just some older student of the college (there were a fair number of older married students there).

Strangely, everyone else seemed more focused on the fact that I had gotten sorta kinda hit by a car than that this was clearly Kenny Rogers. And since I was fine, a lot of the focus of this scenario was the fact that I had been going the wrong way down a one way street and that was dangerous and so on and so forth.

This experience would serve as a valuable lesson in safety and awareness that would one day lead to me wrecking three cars in the five years after I started driving.

In any case, my point is this: That guy who hit me on my bike looked just like Kenny Rogers (a small part of my brain still thinks maybe Kenny lived a secret part of his life there at that college campus with that family…). And Kenny Rogers sang the song The Gambler. And The Gambler has an important lesson:

You gotta know when to hold ’em,
Know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.

The Parent

The lesson from the Gambler doesn’t apply to parenting, generally speaking. I mean, I’m sure you could come up with a scenario, or a way of looking at it, in which it does apply. But that would ruin my cleanly dichotomous contrast here, so just work with me, okay?

I have a 9 year old girl. She’s not–whatever I might often say–perfect. She doesn’t always clean her room (as in, never unless I make her). She doesn’t always remember to turn in her homework. (Though she pretty much always remembers to do it and does a very good job of it because she’s a freakin’ genius. She’s not perfect, but she is a genius, all right?)

Anyway, our children are not perfect, but we don’t just one day up and “fold ’em” and “walk away” (though yes, there are days we want to “run”).

Again, we could take this whole comparison farther, and talk about how much of the parenting experience comes from “the hand that we are dealt” and how much of it is a result of our own example and decisions as a parent, which cards we choose to trade in for other cards and yada yada…

But really, it’s not some formula or set of rules or whatever. We stick to it because we are wonderfully irrational about our children. Love is like that. Especially parental love. When it comes to our children, we’ll keep putting all our money back in the pot based on a pair of two’s because, I mean, gosh, that’s my little girl, and I’d bet on her every time.

Wait, isn’t this blog something to do with a DIY Spider-Man Costume?

Oh yeah. This was supposed to be about my DIY Spider-Man costume.

I was originally intending to make some comparison and analogy and somethin’ somethin’ about two ways of going forward with my costume, and got carried away.

I am at a point of decision here, having started the official screen printing on the official costume shirt:

Eh…not perfect, but okay so far…

Ouch… Hope that dries to match…and can that be touched up…?

Oh. Uh. I…yikes.

Here’s where I think the analogy comes in, the competing perspectives. I go back and forth between looking at the costume as the Parent and looking at it as The Gambler.

As the Parent, I overlook the rough edges–and I mean that literally, not figuratively–and the glaring spots of mismatched color, the not quite matched up web pattern (though I came closer to matching that up than I thought possible!)…

As the Gambler, I do notice those flaws, and also think about how those will continue, and magnify, and how the odds are that I will invest x number of hours (in addition to what I have invested already) and x number of dollars (in addition to what I have invested already) only to fight a losing battle. The odds of getting not just a particular screen print pattern correctly applied are slim enough, but to get each applied correctly and matching the other ones…

Know when to fold ’em, right?

But…but it could still work. I mean, it’s not perfect, but it’s kind of cool, right?

Know when to walk away.

(Am I being too dramatic? I’m being too dramatic.)

So…now what?

I mentioned that I’m stubborn. But I’m not a perfectionist. That’s my saving grace here. If I were truly a perfectionist, I suppose I would keep doing this over and over until I get it right.

But considering I’m not even sure it[‘s possible to do this process perfectly (in the context of a reasonable amount of time and money, at least), then thank god for not being a perfectionist about this. Though taking it to that extreme would probably count as having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or something…

I’m not giving up on the overall goal of a costume. Again, the original goal here was to design a template to be professionally screen printed and then sew that fabric together myself. That remains the ultimate goal.

As for the test costume, the one meant to somewhat emulate the Peter Parker homemade type style… I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to be abandoning that entirely. But I definitely need to stop and reevaluate.

What I’m doing with the screen printing isn’t working. I’ve been suspecting that for a while now, but that became more certain after the recent work. The shirt alone would require four more distinct screens–representing days of prep–and fourteen more printings of four coats each (many hours of work spread over days) just to get that still-not-so-bright red that doesn’t quite apply evenly and ends up with splotchy edges…

Even doing a new shirt with two fabric colors–along with new mask, boots, and gloves–would take care of the red part, but wouldn’t change the total number and dimensions of the screens, the issues with matching the web patterns across multiple printings…

Aargh.

So…again…now what? This post is getting pretty long y’know…

I think that, for now, I will re-focus on designing the template for the professionally screen-printed costume that I will sew together.

I think that one will be a more traditional/recognizable Spider-Man costume, since it will likely be worn for some public library events where the general public would not really appreciate the subtle geekery of a Ditko style costume….

I will reevaluate the Peter Parker DIY style/Ditko style costume. I am still interested in doing one in the “separate mask, gloves, boots, shirt, pants” style. But I think I will need to have the fabric professionally screen printed. I think I could modify the “full bodysuit” style template to one that will meet the Peter Parker DIY style needs.

So, what have we gained here?

I have certainly learned that ol’ Petey would have had a really hard time putting that costume together back in the day.

I have also learned that screen printing–while very difficult for a full body costume–is wicked fun for making t-shirts. I am going to fit some new fabric on a screen and have my daughter design a T-shirt for herself that I will screen print. And I think I will, at some point, make a T-shirt using my Spider-Man mask design. Black or red lines on a blue shirt, I think…

No need for all these screen printing supplies to go to waste, right?