No Mr. Bond, I Expect You To Die!

I picture my son from the neck down, sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair I've never noticed before, a white cat on his lap. Like the armchair, stuffed, of course. He’s an infant after all.

Gently, he strokes the fur, and then his voice:

“So, Mr. Dad, we meet again.”

My son is an evil mastermind of Blofeld proportions. His vicious enmity is not in the form of world domination, but he’s young. He’ll get there. No, he rules his SPECTRE-like organization with a cunning that belies both his age and his giggle when you blow zerbits on his belly. His aim: the complete and utter loss of parental sanity through sleep-depravation.

You may have read the report that his reign of terror ended some time ago.

The reports of that demise have been greatly exaggerated. He took a brief hiatus, then returned with renewed vim and vigor, a more penetrating scream, and tears that could melt a Terminator’s non-existent heart.

Yes, he’s that good.

So, this morning, as I staggered into his room, he sat in the yellow cone his nightlight carefully angled to hide his grinning, bald head. My hand stumbled awkwardly toward my Walther PPK in the form of a bottle. He was unmoved by this threat.

“Surrender, I’ve already won,” he told me, with a cruel laugh.

“No,” I said, my resolve was shaky. “I’ll never join you!”

“And yet you are here.”

“Hah! That’s where you’re wrong,” and now it was my turn for a laugh, even though you shouldn’t laugh at your children.

His petting of the stuffed cat stopped.

“How so?”

“This is just a dream. If it were real, you wouldn’t be talking.”

“Oh.”

*vanishes in a poof of Adamsian logic*