Get out of the car!!!!

I am sitting in my favorite chair when the ad that irks me the most came on.

The ad revolves around a tired father who has been toiling to build a tree house for his son to play in for those adventures that we all hope our sons will dream and imagine. Speckled with paint and sweating, this kind Dad, who more than likely would have enjoyed a cold beverage and a ballgame on the couch, comes to the PARKED VAN in the driveway and slides open the side door to reveal the son and a friend hooked up and spaced out to a DVD which is keeping them spellbound with modern wonder.

Told that 'it took a while, but the tree house is finally done', the smartaleck kid asks his Dad if the new tree house comes with leather seats, DVD player, air conditioning and various other items to which the dad replies 'No'.

The smarmy little brat looks at the Dad disdainfully and then announces "We're good!" where upon he shuts the door.

Rewind and re-tape this episode!

First of all, what are children doing PLAYING in a car!?!?! That is stupid under ANY circumstance!

Second, had I been the Dad in question (which I would never be since I'm female, but play along for the sake of accuracy . . .), I would have told him and his friend to "GET OUT OF THE CAR! AND I MEAN NOW, MISTER!"

Rewinding even further, the smarmy kid (and possibly his friend) would have had his little butt out helping build the tree house!! Nothing makes you excited like ownership of something that has gone from dream to reality while you helped construct it.

Tree houses aren't about DVD players or air conditioning. They are about becoming a pirate or a fireman or the captain of a space ship. They are for launching paper airplanes and for tossing water balloons onto your sisters and brother (until you get caught!) and for sleeping in on nights where the little window opens up onto a star filled universe that your dime store telescope can't quite bring in close enough to touch.

Tree houses are for eating watermelon and spitting the seeds for distance. They are the base of operations for war games and the picketed fort of the U.S. Cavalry when the Comanches have gone on the warpath.

Tree houses are the opposite of technology. They have no constraints or limits. Everything is possible to him who believes. "Seeing isn't believing - believing is seeing" (to borrow the phrase from the movie 'The Santa Clause'). There are no limitations with the notable exception of bath time or bedtime.

Climbing the rungs of the homemade ladder is akin to ascending to the peak of the Himalayas with a trusty Sherpa guide. You can climb into the capsule and strap in for the launch clock to begin. The ladder leads up into the heavens or down into the gaping jaws of the earth itself.

Some tree houses have firepoles attached and some have slides. Others are merely the prepared house in a tree that becomes the starting point for adventures that never end.

I recently read where even adults are looking into tree houses as family homes now. For those adventurous souls, there is still the spark of what is yet to be that the automakers who mock the simplicity of youth with the blatant heresy of technology will never understand.

When the car battery dies and the DVD player will no longer spin tales of wonder, only the child who has learned to see what isn't there can find a place to explore and to grow. The others will only cry because the bright lights of earthly wonder have gone dim.

To a true adventurer, a tree house is a portal to all possible worlds and all possible realities. To embrace the wonder that is available, life is totally full. To those who are enmeshed with technology, life can be totally barren. Their adventure depends upon power and pixels. Tree houses run on imagination.

Get out of the car and go climb a tree.