A friend of mine called me earlier this week to help him move a pool table to his basement. You get this kind of call a lot when you’re a stay at home Dad. People know you’re usually around.

So I went over with the kids after school and they played upstairs with my friend’s kids and I helped move the table. My buddy had also invited a neighbor of his over to help. I’d met him but I didn’t really know him. The two of them started talking politics and it became clear he was a big liberal atheist type. He actually seemed like a nice guy who delighted in mocking his Christian conservative friend.

I pretty much stayed out of it. I was pretty proud of myself acting like a grownup. He called my buddy a member of the “Terry Schiavo right.”

My buddy answered, “You’re darn right I am. And proud of it.”

After a few barbs back and forth about Schiavo the atheist guy said “What is it you don’t understand about brain dead?”

My buddy actually put the pool table down on the stairs and offered to show the famous video of Schiavo’s eyes following the balloon but the atheist guy declined. My buddy looked at me for support but I shrugged my shoulders. I was still acting like an adult.

After we got the table downstairs they sat down on the couch. I went upstairs to check on the kids. They were fine. (I think they were just happy not to be doing homework.)

When I came back down somehow the question of near death experiences came up and the atheist dude disregarded the very idea of nde’s. He explained it all away by saying that sometimes when people die their brain still continues for a while but it’s not really measurable by science and nde’s are simply dreams or hallucinations.

Now I’d been a good adult for almost a half an hour but I couldn’t let this go by.

I asked the atheist dude, “Just ten minutes ago you said ‘what is it you don’t understand about brain dead’ concerning Terry Schiavo yet now you’re saying that unmeasurable brain waves explain nde’s. So now brain dead doesn’t mean brain dead anymore?”

My buddy leaped off the couch started pointing at his face and doing a touchdown dance in front of him. I didn’t because I was still Mr. Adult. The guy was clearly embarrassed but went on the attack saying, “Oh you brought another right wing nutjob. Thank God I’m here to add balance. You Fox News guys believe in fair and balanced right?”

He, of course, never answered the question. I can only hope that it’ll stick in his head a little.

We played a race car video game for about twenty minutes. I made sure to knock his car off the road. Twice.

What?! I can’t be an adult for a whole hour.