My wife and daughter have been out of town since last Friday, so it’s just me and my son for the week. My delusional personality figured it would fun and games for the whole week. The boy and I would play games on the weekend, then go to school and work and live the high life for the rest of the time. Unfortunately, reality struck, and we had a busy schedule of things to do. Let’s be honest. My wife usually does most of those things for him. y wife is usually the one that does most of them. Things that I normally thought happened by magic, all of a sudden don’t happen when she isn’t around.

Everything I leave in a place is still there when I get back. If I don’t make the bed, it still isn’t made when I get back. Dishes don’t automatically go into the dishwasher, and clothes don’t get washed by themselves. The boy isn’t whisked away on a magic broom to school and football practice.

I realized that I don’t like being a single parent, nor would I do very well. Needless to say, I’m counting down the hours until my wife and daughter get back.

In between laundry loads last night, I was reliving my childhood by binging the Transformers Generation 1, the series I grew up on in the 80’s. As a kid, I was mesmerized by the awesome characters and the cool sound they made when they transformed. I still love the cartoon, because it reminds me of a simpler time. As an adult though, I can clearly see that the cartoon’s sole focus was marketing the toys. It’s pretty genius really. I kind of wish I could create a cartoon for every one of the companies I worked for. It sure would make it easier to sell products to kids. Kids are too stupid to see that a cartoons’ sole purpose is to sell them toys, and parents are too busy to care. Bada bing bada boom, Transfomers makes millions selling toys to dumb kids and busy parents (and nostalgic adults).

One of the episodes I watched last night was one about an Autobot named Gears. In Transformer lore, he’s pretty insignificant. He wasn’t Bumblebee or Optimus Prime. He was pretty forgettable because he was only in a handful of episodes and he was one of the tiny cars that nobody really bought. Marketing must have asked animation to make an episode around him, because they wanted to make one last push before they got rid of him, or there was a sale on him that week, because they built the entire episode around him.

In the episode, Megatron decided to hatch one of his “hairbrained schemes”. He had this Solar Needle that would capture the energy of the sun. But he was missing one part necessary to make the Solar Needle work. Coincidentally, the only Transformer that had the special part he needed was Gears. Shocker!

Megatron tricks the Autobots into attacking them and while they are distracted, the Decepticons surround Gears and kidnap him. It’s important to note that Gears is the Bitter Ben of the Autobots, as told by the intro in the earlier part of the episode.

Megatron takes Gears to Africa (because they can fly really fast), so he can hatch part 2 of his “hairbrained scheme”. He removes the part from Gears to run his Solar Needle. What he doesn’t realize is that the essential part inside Gears is also his personality chip. All of a sudden, Bitter Gears is Nice Gears.

The Autobots realize the Solar Needle is causing the instability in the sun, so they need to stop the Decepticons scheme before the sun explodes. And I guess save Gears. But what is most important? Saving the universe’s light source? Or saving a grumpy, bitter Autobot? Clearly the priority was the sun.

In the struggle to stop the Solar Needle, the Autobots realize that Gears is different. Ironhide says to Megatron, “What have you done to Gears? You’ve turned his nice!”

And Yada, Yada, the Autobots destroy the Solar Needle, defeat the Decepticons, and get Gears personality chip back. At the end of the episode, they are trying to decide if they should give Gears his chip back, because they like nice Gears. They end up voting to not give it back. Gears threatens to pound them to a pulp if they don’t give him back his chip, but in a nice voice.

I don’t have a metal personality chips inside of my body that makes me bitter. But I’m not a cool robot that can transform into a car. I wish I was a robot that could transform into a car, because it would make the commute easier. Plus, it would really be nice to have a laser gun to bring to work if anyone was thinking of firing me. Just a little pat on my laser gun would discourage people from doing something stupid.

I am, however, made up of a lot of cells inside my brain that form my bitter personality. I’m sure there is an evil brain surgeon out there, thinking about building a Solar Needle to harvest the power of the sun to make Energon cubes right now. Might I suggest that the evil brain surgeon be disuaded from kidnapping me so he can steal the part of my brain needed to run a Solar Needle.

I promise that surgeon does not want to face Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and a bunch of Lamborghinis that change into 30-foot-tall sentient robots. More importantly, that evil surgeon does not want to face a Bitter Ben without the bitter personality. Without my bitterness, I’m creepier than the clown in IT. Trust me when I say, he’d be better off surrounded by Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruger and Wednesday from the Adams Family.

I know the personality cells in my brain are a critical part of building a Solar Needle that will steal the sun’s energy. Trust me. Even if stealing the power of the sun was done for noble purposes, like providing the earth infinite energy for 10,000 years, it’s not worth it. Even if we never have to pay for gas, electricity or internet for the rest of eternity, it isn’t worth it. The price of me not being bitter is too high.

ARRRGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Most Important Chip Ben