Monster Trucks

September 25th, 2024

Asher likes monster trucks. I think most little boys like them. Asher has several model trucks. He has the “Gravedigger” and the “Northern Nightmare”. He loves to take them to the playground. He rolls them down the slide and looks to see if they land in an upright position. He will do that over and over. He can only launch them down the slide when there aren’t many other kids around, because they want to actually slide down the slide. Asher and I tend to go to Kayla’s Place early in the morning. It’s less crowded and he has more time opportunity to toss his monster truck from up high.

Yesterday, there was another little boy at the playground. He too had a monster truck. He looked to be Asher’s age, maybe three or four years old. Asher saw him and wanted to play with the boy, and probably his truck. The boy’s father encouraged his son to play with Asher. Asher waited expectantly for the little guy to do that. The young man had no interest in playing with Asher. He turned away from him, and despite his father’s urgings, refused to have anything to do with Asher.

The dad got irritated by his boy’s behavior. He told,

“If you won’t play with the other boy, then we will just go home.”

His son refused to interact with Asher, so the dad said,

“Okay. We’re going home.”

The little guy didn’t like that, but his father picked him up and headed to the parking lot.

Asher stood there and watched his potential playmate get carried off. Asher looked utterly defeated.

He asked me, “Where did the boy go?”

I answered him, “He and his daddy went home.”

“What will I do?”

“There is another little boy here. You could play with him.”

“I don’t want to play with another boy. I want to play with that boy.”

He started crying quietly.

Then he asked me, “What can I do?”

I felt a twinge in my heart. Maybe it was from a half-remembered event like this one. Maybe it was because of something I felt at some playground six decades ago when some other little boy refused to play with me. I felt empathy for Asher. He wanted to play with a particular person, and that person for reasons unknown rejected him. There was no explanation for it. Asher did not understand why the other boy wouldn’t play with him. I didn’t understand it either.

I was sitting on a bench. Asher came up to me and dried his tears on my t-shirt. He looked up at me and asked,

“What can I do?”

“Do you want to go to the library for story time?”

He perked up. “Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“You have to carry me to the car.”

“Why do I have to carry you? Are you a lazy butt?”

Asher smiled and said, “Yeah. Carry me.”

I did.