A couple weeks ago, as we were getting ready for Relay for Life, we opened a package of toys we’d purchased to give away as prizes. My youngest picked up a classic toy: a propeller on a stick. We used to call them puddle jumpers.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a helicopter,” I said.

“I never could get these things to work,” my wife said, spinning it between her hands.

“It’s easy.” I took the stick away from her, put it between my palms, and slid my hands apart. The stick spun, the propeller caught the air, and the helicopter zoomed into the air. . . and straight into my son’s eye.

I’m not exaggerating this one. The red plastic propellor actually hit him in his open eye.

“AAAAHHHH!” he clamped his hands over his eye and ran to his mom.

I was stunned. “I didn’t mean to…”

No one listened. They were all too busy glaring at me.

“Oh come on. You don’t really think I meant to do that!”

Later, as he and I were in the urgent care clinic having his eye seen to, the doctor asked what happened.

“A helicopter hit him in the eye,” I said.

“Sure it did,” she said.

“That’s not exactly true,” my son said.

She smiled the conciliatory smile that all doctors seem to learn in medical school.  “I didn’t think so.”

“Actually, my dad flew the helicopter right into my eye.”

I dropped my head as she turned to me.

“Right into my eye,” he repeated. “I didn’t even have time to close it.”

“It’s true,” I said without looking up. “I flew a helicopter right into my own son’s eye.”