Gooseberry: The art of yo

My number three son bought a new yo yo the other day.

He bought from a reputable on line yo yo dealer and had it shipped directly to our home where he waited for a whole weekend before the mailman finally dropped it off late Monday afternoon.

"It's broken," he told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It won't come back."

"What do you mean, won't come back?"

"I throw it down and it just spins and doesn't come back."

"I thought you bought that kind special because it was a good sleeper."

"I know, but sometimes yo yos are nonresponsive. Mine is nonresponsive. Try it yourself."

So I tried it. I know a little about yo yos. I had a Duncan butterfly when I was kid, then a special yellow one later. I was pretty hot stuff. I could make it go down and it always returned.

I threw the new yo yo and ... nothing. It just sat there an spun.

I could have admitted defeat, or blamed the yo yo, but I remembered something My Wonderful Wife said a few weeks earlier when we were cleaning out the kids' toy room.

I was focused on picking up a bunch of legos and she was holding our daughters' hula hoop. I remember she put it around her waste, gave it a toss and then, nothing. The hula hoop did one and a half turns and fell to the ground.

"It's broken," she said.

My Number Two Son picked it up, put it around his hips and began to hula hoop like a Hawaiian dancer. "No it's not. You just have to know how to make it work," he said.

Remembering my wife, and her failure to hula hoop, I decided to check out a couple things about new yo yos and those that don't return.

It turns out, the biggest problem with a defective yo yo is the weak toss. My son has a very slik bearing yo yo that is designed to be a good sleeper. Before it can return, it has to have enough momentum to grab the string. Armed with this knowlege I attempted the yo yo again. It still didn't work. But I passed on the information to My Number Three Son and in about 15 minutes he was able to make the yo yo work.

Feeling accomplished I walked over to the hula hoop and gave it a twirl. Sure enough, it was still broken.