Mission: Imitable

Recently, some relatives of mine dropped in for a visit for a couple of days. It was nice to see two of my cousins who I had not met in ten years as well as my aunt and uncle. As such, we spent a lot of their visit catching up on things and generally enjoying the time together. My cousins are a few years younger than me and since I am the older among most of my cousins, I am usually the de facto 'gang leader'. Our conversation turned to movies as it often does and my younger cousin began to sing the praises of Tom Cruise and his exploits in the "Mission Impossible" movies.

I think it is genetically hardwired into almost every male to want to be like the action heroes and stars that we see on the big screen. Growing up I can't tell you how many times I had imaginary adventures as Luke Skywalker fighting off the forces of Darth Vader or as Superman saving people and generally acting heroic. In this case, my cousin was jokingly telling us how he was quite capable of replicating the adventures of Ethan Hunt in the movies, in particular the mountain climbing portions. He kept telling us how he's been trained by the CIA and works out with them on a regular basis to keep active field agents in shape. We jokingly played along with him when we got it in our heads to test him out.

Close to my parents place is a Dick's Sporting Goods store where they have a four story climbing wall. We drove over and got my cousin outfitted appropriately and then sent him off on the wall. Every few feet he would look down at the rest of us and proclaim that he was getting tired and yet we kept pushing him. He started going over to the easier 'green' path to climb up the rock but he was quickly teased and admonished by those of us on terra firma for trying to take the easy way out. It was quite comical to see him climbing up at a timid pace hoping to reach the top in one piece. He made it approximately 3/4's of the way to the top before getting a touch of vertigo.

As always in a male group, the teasing began and though we encouraged him for reaching such heights as that we didn't let him live it down. Neither did the staff at the store. They had seen him gearing up and several of the girls working the front desk told him that they would be able to see him from the front of the store and they were hoping to see him at the top. Being all of 15 years old, the attempts at flirting with him flew over his head faster than a Concorde at top speed. When we returned without having reached the top they asked him if he had. He said that he had indeed touched the top of the wall. They asked why he hadn't hit the buzzer. Pride kicked in and again he said he had and asked if the buzzer was really all that loud. They told him that it was loud enough to be heard throughout the store. He said that it wasn't functioning which was why they didn't hear it. They got ready to call the back to have the buzzer tested when my cousin finally broke down and said that he hadn't reached the top. They gave him sympathetic smiles and wished him better luck on future trips up the wall.

Upon his return to the ground and our departure from the climbing wall area, we noticed a little girl gearing up to have a go at the wall. My cousin insisted on hanging about just to see. His male pride would not allow him to be undone by a girl. When she chose the slightly harder path that my cousin had also taken he was a little unnerved thinking that this was a sign that he would be second behind a girl... a little one at that. He began saying that he wanted another go. As we watched, the little girl made her way up. Each foot she went higher, the more my cousin pushed to have another go at it. The little girl finally slowed up and came back down having reached a point 1/4th of the way up the wall. Pride intact, my cousin triumphantly led us out of the store. I wonder if Tom Cruise had these issues growing up.