{"id":533,"date":"2008-12-03T15:03:48","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T15:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2008\/12\/03\/the-finger-of-doom\/"},"modified":"2008-12-03T15:03:48","modified_gmt":"2008-12-03T15:03:48","slug":"the-finger-of-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2008\/12\/03\/the-finger-of-doom\/","title":{"rendered":"The Finger Of Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time ago, we started a new game called \u201cslow poke\u201d. You can read about it here<\/a>. Basically, it involves showing your intended victim your finger, and then poking them – very slowly.<\/p>\n

This game quieted down after it caused so many problems in the kids\u2019 classrooms. One day in the car, however, I forgot that I wasn\u2019t supposed to play. My wife was driving, and I was in the passenger seat.\u00a0I turned back to face the kids and held up my finger in the traditional start of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My wife\u2019s face instantly transformed itself into her \u201cif you do that, I\u2019m going to beat you with a frying pan\u201d mask.<\/p>\n

This left me in an awkward spot. I had my finger in the air, my two kids staring hopefully at me, and my wife glaring menacingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinger,\u201d I said ominously.<\/p>\n

The kids eyes widened. This was not the game they were expecting.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf,\u201d I said more loudly.<\/p>\n

They looked at each other and at my finger, not sure what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOOM!\u201d I shouted and\u00a0poked the oldest one in the belly. He burst out laughing. Then I did it to my other son. Soon both were giggling,\u00a0shouting \u201cfinger of doom,\u201d and poking each other.<\/p>\n

My wife sighed loudly. \u201cAnd this is better, how?\u201d<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, \u201cFinger of Doom\u201d went the way of \u201cSlowpoke.\u201d Once I stopped playing, it just disappeared from our culture. We haven\u2019t seen it in several months now.<\/p>\n

This morning, as I was lying in bed trying not to wake up, I heard the door to our bedroom open. I sleep on the opposite side of the bed from the door, so my wife blocks my view of the kids when they come in. This morning, however, I saw my four year old\u2019s hand raised, with his index finger pointing skywards.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning,\u201d I mumbled.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinger,\u201d he said, walking closer and holding his hand over his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d his mom and I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf,\u201d he said, getting louder and closer, still with that finger raised high.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh-oh,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOOM!\u201d he shouted as he poked at us.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the problem with the finger of doom. You just never know where it\u2019s going to strike next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time ago, we started a new game called \u201cslow poke\u201d. You can read about it here. Basically, it involves showing your intended victim your finger, and then poking them – very slowly. This game quieted down after it caused so many problems in the kids\u2019 classrooms. One day in the car, however, I forgot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[123,122,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-cute","category-daddytales-n","category-daddytales-funny"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-8B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}