Whoopee! Volkswagen has brought back "Punch Bug."
It's now called "Punch Dub," but the rules are the same: See a VW, punch a buddy.
The "Punch Dub" television commercials are delightful. A little boy sees a VW and punches a gray-haired man in the hip, a pregnant wife wallops her husband's right arm with her fist, a bearded man on a horse-drawn carriage enthusiastically slugs his pal.
Just like a Three Stooges movie, I can watch this stuff endlessly.
Actually, I feel vindicated. Recently, I wrote a column about my two rambunctious boys. I mentioned my 8-year-old son's lifelong attempt to get a rise out of me by punching me in the biceps.
A gentle reader, commenting online, noted -- perhaps correctly -- that I am a typical Southern male: "myopic" and "dysfunctional." I imagine this person fuming over the "Punch Dub" commercials as a threat to Western civilization.
(To anyone who thinks that because I watched the Three Stooges as a kid that I want to twist somebody's nose with a pair of pliers, I have one thing to say: Whatever. That would be myopic. I'd much rather have them slap my fist and then windmill it around like a sledgehammer.)
Kidding.
Even before the VW commercials, I had taught my boys to play "Punch Bug" -- we called it "Slug Bug" in Middle Tennessee.
My older son soon became bored because there were so few actual Volkswagen Beetles in town. Together, we invented a new game called "Punch Church." You guessed it: See a church, punch Daddy. One day we drove down Brainerd Road, and I ended up black and blue.
If you get tired of "Punch Church," here are two other possibilities:
* Sap Slap -- Punch your buddy if you see a Bradford pear tree.
* Crack Attack -- Punch your buddy if you see anyone with saggy britches.
These will do for a couple of years until the city is crawling with VWs. After that, if you have little boys, I suggest you invest in some shoulder pads.