If I ever had any doubt on whether Tyler is of my own flesh and blood, that doubt disappeared when I saw him make a foot-fist.

There are a few things that, I think, differentiate me from most (normal) people. One, I can not comfortably sit in a chair, unless one leg is under my “bottom” or unless I’m sitting “Indian style” on it. Sitting normal, with both feet on the ground, is very uncomfortable for me.

Another thing I do is curl my toes, all the time. It looks like I’m making a fist with my foot. I’m doing so right now, as a matter of fact. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that my mom or dad does this as well. I also cross my big toe over my second toe, on both feet, quite often; much like crossing your fingers when you make a promise that you have no intention of keeping.

And, for the hat trick in foot contortionism, I can pick many things up with my feet. TV remotes, keys, baby toys, dog toys, and even tennis balls must bow to the will of my podiatric grip. Someone in the house finds this to be quite disturbing slash disgusting, while I see it as the next step in evolution. We’re only a few decades away from having children that are born with opposable big-toes, just like our primate brethren. It’s a scientific fact, but I don’t have any scientific proof to back that claim.

Now, don’t go thinking that my monkey-feet are freakish and nasty looking. They look just like the feet on your average man. The possibility even exists that everyone can do these tricks, and I’m not unique at all. I haven’t asked around, so we’ll leave it at me thinking I’m unique.

The joy I felt when I saw Tyler make his first foot fist was not echoed with Sarah. Instead, she directed a stare at me that I characterize as accusatory and contemptuous. If that wasn’t enough, she telepathically sent a thought that roared in my head, “You did this to him. You did this to my baby boy!!”

A day or two later, I was tickling Tyler’s feet with his toy keys. He’s not yet laughing when I tickle him, but he smiles. And, while hearing Tyler laugh is currently one of my most favorite things, I’m quite happy to see and elicit a smile from this big little man. All of a sudden, as I was running the plastic key ring across the bottom of his foot, he grabbed the keys. WITH HIS FOOT!

Monkey feet

My little monkey baby truly is his father’s son. And speaking of monkeys…

The “Infinite Monkey Theorem” has been phrased many ways, so forgive me if this isn’t how you remember it. I almost had a brain orgasm when I read about it on Wikipedia while preparing for this post. There’s so much to think about with statistics and probabilities that it’s hard for the mind to comprehend.

If an infinite number of monkeys randomly pressed keys on an infinite number of typewriters, for an infinite amount of time, eventually, one of them will type the entire works of Shakespeare.

This is a statement which I’ve always believed to be true. As a man that is marveled by science and math, I understood that it is a statistical certainty that, eventually, one of the monkeys would rip a sheet out of the typewriter, start flinging his own poo at the other monkeys, and proudly proclaim that he has finally done it. He has finished writing Hamlet. But, what happened a couple days ago has me questioning my own beliefs.

I had a computer hard drive crash on Thanksgiving. After I got everything back up and running again, I had to manually rebuild some catalog files. Tyler was sitting on my lap while I madly typed up a new index and hash codes and other things that I’m sure you don’t care about. Tyler decided that he would like to have a go at the keyboard. While I was happy that Tyler offered to help me, I had no intention of turning him loose on my code. Instead, I opened up Notepad and rolled Tyler within reach of the keyboard.

Giving Tyler the green light, I said, “Okay, infinite monkey, let’s see what you’ve got.”

He did not impress me with his typing abilities. He was all over the place. He wouldn’t keep his fingers on the home keys, he kept hitting the windows button, and somehow managed to open up Powerpoint. Here’s his final screen output:

zvgbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb                                                                      5768\\\\\\\\\\\\\

\\\\\\\\\\\aaaaaaaaassssss
fswwwwbr0jq8rnbj4iidqfz88foydhgp3jeb86aoq aqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq

Click the image to view the proof, in all it’s glory

If you were to spend any time actually looking at the above, you may have noticed that there’s a fairly long run of letters that aren’t repeated, like “ssssssssssss” from Tyler just holding one key down for three seconds. Under normal circumstances, I’d find that to be rather impressive. I mean, it’s certainly not of the literary caliber of MacBeth, but it’s still pretty neat.

Don’t go getting Tyler’s name engraved on on the Nobel Prize in Literature just yet. That little string of text just happens to be one of my hash codes. I saved it to the clipboard while I was rebuilding the index, and Tyler happened to press CTRL-V to paste it into his literary masterpiece. What I’m getting at is this: Tyler is a fraud. I do not condone plagiarism, especially when it is my own son who has plagiarized my hard work.

Based on the rest of his output, I have now determined that the “Infinite Monkey Theorem” is a falsity. How could I possibly believe it after seeing the character-stringing mess that Tyler created? Once again, I have little to no scientific proof to back this up. After all, Tyler is not a monkey, but he’s pretty close. He can grab things with his feet. And, left to his own devices, I have no doubts that he would fling his own poo all over the place.

I say he has monkey feet, like his father. But then I see this, and think that maybe “elephant feet” describes it better