Terrible Ideas: Parkour Master

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So there I was, minding my own business when Bryce came bounding into our living room looking like this:

"Oh, God," I thought. "Now what?"

A little background.

The year was 2006. Tom Cruise was busy redefining the word "nutcase". Lindsay Lohan actually produced movies instead of parole violations. And the latest James Bond film had just been released, Casino Royale.

I had been dreading this day. Not that I don't like James Bond, mind you, I do. It's just that every damned time he sees a Bond movie, he always ends up going a little overboard.

Well, this time it was particularly bad.

Remember that extended free-running scene where Bond chases after the bad guy through the streets of Madagascar? Remember how that scene caused an explosion of Parkour videos on the Internet? Yeah, you can see where this is going.

It was perfect, in his head. A tenuous link to James Bond AND Internet fame! Bryce had discovered his calling.

Bryce had decided to become a Parkour Master. Never mind that he has the athletic prowess of a baked potato. His mind was made up and he was no longer considering non-Parkour-related options.

All day, every day, no matter what I was doing, he'd be pestering me everywhere about Parkour this or Parkour that.

Everywhere.

EVERY. WHERE.

So when he dragged me out into the hall, I could take a wild guess what it was about. Maybe he had built an obstacle course out of old pizza boxes and textbooks. Maybe he had padded the walls with mattresses. But instead, I saw this:

"I don't get it. What am I looking at?" I asked.

He turned to me and shouted. "ONLY THIS!"

He is no longer considering Parkour as a career option.