When I was growing up, I was a huge comic book fan and sci-fi geek, at a time before it was considered (somehow, miraculously) cool. For example, I was such a big Spider-man fan that when they first announced plans for a Spider-man movie I was DETERMINED to get the part, and I sat in the theater opening night staring daggers at Tobey Maguire the entire time.

Imagine my excitement then when my son recently started exhibiting a HUGE love of Spider-man himself. Last night, he wore his Spidey pajamas to bed:

…and we had the following exchange this morning:

ME: Leo, I love your pajamas!

LEO: Yeah! I’m Spider-man!

ME: You sure are!

LEO: I can stick to the walls!

ME: That’s right!

LEO: Because of MAGNETS!

Now, the conversations goes in two directions. There’s the response I WANTED to give:

ME: That’s fucking ridiculous! Magnets?? Spider-man has the proportionate strength and other physical properties of a SPIDER, all right? Are spiders made of METAL? NO, they’re NOT! Spider-Man can stick to walls because of microscopic hairs on his fingers and toes that allow him to cling to surfaces, and his superhuman strength allows him to use that ability to propel himself upwards. Get your head out of your ass!

And here’s the answer I DID give:

ME: That’s right, buddy!

I can only hope that my going easy on my son this morning will not result in a disaster down the line where he mistakes the Web Slinger for the X-Men’s arch-nemesis Magneto. If that happens, he might doom himself to a high school career full of dates.