I was nine
or ten when I first caught the Get Smart bug. It was witty, sarcastic, and all about spies.
And for some reason, I don’t know why, Hymie the robot
caught my attention. Maybe because he
was so literal in following instructions, and this struck me as silly. If you were in a hurry and told Hymie to
“shake a leg,” he wouldn’t walk faster -- he’d stand there on one leg while
shaking the other one.
For some reason, I wanted the other kids at school to think
I was a robot, like Hymie. So I took a
piece of paper and drew a (very inartistic) sketch of my left arm, showing
various freckles. Then I labeled
the freckles as if they were buttons. This is a greatly improved version of a third-grader’s
sketch.
Then I told Mom that I was going to leave some copies of
this diagram out on the school playground to make other kids think I was a
robot.
My mom showed great composure by pretending to go along with
this scheme and seemed to take this stupid idea as if it were seriously to be
considered.
Nowadays I can’t even count the ways that this was silly or
dumb or what-have-you. The thing was
drawn in pencil by a second- or third grader.
Not too authoritative, huh? Also,
if I remember right, I didn’t even write my name or any other ID on the scrap
of paper. So how could kids know WHO was
supposed to be the robot?
