Mateo's Story

Meet Mateo.

He’s a cuddly four-year-old with twinkling brown eyes… who also has a (probably unhealthy) obsession with firearms.

“This is my destroying stick. If we meet the enemy, I will destroy him”

People gloss it over by chuckling, “Oh, he’s all boy!,” but I refuse to believe that ALL little boys are this preoccupied with weaponry. Kaden, for example, enjoys a pretend swordfight/shootout every once in a while, but he’s not picking up every stick he finds, crouching into combat stance, sighting the enemy, and blasting him with a sound-effect “pshhheww!” (in extreme cases, the stick goes over his shoulder as a bazooka, with so much firepower that the recoil pushes back his small body as it annihilates entire armies of bad guys).

Naturally, I’m disturbed and horrified by this. I don’t even allow toy guns in my house, for Pete's sake! When he turned every object into a gun anyway, I attempted to dampen the fun whenever I could by inserting my little motherly admonitions: “Don’t point guns at people.” “Don’t pretend to kill—just put the bad guys in jail.”“Don’t point your gun sideways, that only works in the movies.”

I knew that my peace-loving platitudes were failing miserably when one day, as Greg’s parents were over, Mateo was on my lap, blasting away at Grandpa Brad with his Lego machine gun.

“Remember, don’t shoot guns at people,” I said wearily.

He slowly swung his gun around, aiming it right between my eyes. With a “chk-chk” he cocked his gun, shifted it an inch to the left, and fired it right past my ear, all without breaking his steely gaze and devilish smirk.

What is there to do but surrender (and try to suppress giggles), at this point? I’ve resigned to tolerating his fetish, even indulging it at times, while trying to keep the violence to a minimum. So when Mateo insisted I tell a story about him, with the direction to include 1) war 2) guns and 3) candy, this is what resulted from our collaboration:

Mateo’s Story
By Marissa, with much contribution as it went along by Mateo

Once upon a time there were two cities in the kingdom of America: California and Beresford. These weren’t just ordinary cities, though; betwixt the two sat a mountain—made of candy. Tootsie Pops, Kit Kats, Fruit Roll-Ups, gum balls… any candy you can imagine. Both cities, of course, wanted the candy for themselves, which began the Great Candy Wars of 2002.

The wars lasted many years, with both sides equally matched. Finally, the queen of Beresford said “Enough. We must find a champion to win the candy mountain for us once and for all.” She held a series of games, each more difficult than the next—strength contests, bow and arrow shooting, grenade throwing, mazes, and bazooka blasting. As each game progressed, a clear winner emerged: Mateo Dean Kleinhans (At this point, I raise Mateo’s hand, and he gives his small smile that’s suppressing gallons of inward glee and pride).

The queen gave Mateo all the weaponry and ammo in the kingdom, and he set out to summit the candy mountain, pausing only to grab handfuls of sweet, sweet sustenance. When he reached the top, he was flanked on all sides by the formidable Californian army. He battled them all until there was one left standing: Carlson. Carlson was the strongest warrior from California, so the stage was set for an epic battle. Mateo and Carlson pulled out everything in their arsenal—grenades, swords, swordfish, everything—until they had one weapon left: the monster gun. They shot their monster guns at the same time, but instead of hitting the enemy, the explosions hit each other, causing the mountain to erupt in a fantastic shower of candy.

Everyone stood outside with open mouths and baskets to catch the candy, and when it was all over, Beresford and California had equal hills of candy by their town. They realized that they could share the bounty, and finally ended their wars; Carlson became king of California, and Mateo ruled Beresford peacefully. Everyone had candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the dentists of the town were busy for years to come. THE END!