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The release of the new "Transformers" movie brings back a lot of memories, mostly bad ones.

Our two sons were small when the Transformer toys swept the nation, and, naturally, they requested a new Transformer for every gift-giving occasion as well as on alternate weekdays.

Soon, our household overflowed with bright-colored superheroes who could transform into dump trucks and helicopters by clicking their moving parts into different positions.

These cool toys presented several problems:

1. The kids quickly lost interest in them. So they constantly demanded new ones.

2. The boys expected us parents to remember which Transformer was which, as they talked about them endlessly and we pretended to listen.

3. The hard plastic Transformers were very sharp when you stepped on them with bare feet.

4. Sometimes, their parts wouldn't click together properly, especially after they'd been stepped on a few times, and this made the boys very, very upset.

5. Worst of all, I couldn't make heads or tails of the Transformers. The boys would bring the toys to me so I could show them how the transformation worked, and I'd struggle with them for hours. By the time I finally got the superhero to be an Army tank, or vice versa, our sons had wandered off or were busy with something else, such as high school.

My failure with Transformers might very well have been my turning point as a father. Up until then, our small sons thought I knew everything. It never crossed their minds that they might be smarter than me, or that Dad might secretly be a doofus who couldn't even get a plastic toy to obey his wishes.

After they saw me hurl recalcitrant robots across the room in frustration a few times, the boys lost all respect for me.

"Never mind," they'd say slyly. "We'll get Mom to fix it."

That's pretty much the way it's gone ever since. Our sons know if they need to fix something complicated, they should consult their mother, who counts patience and an analytical mind among her many virtues and who knows how to operate a hot-glue gun.

The boys come to me if the task is extremely simple or if they need more brute strength than they can muster on their own. Years of typing have given me a powerful grip. If you need something broken, I'm your man.

Our Transformer days are long behind us, of course. The kids have undergone their own transformations, growing into 6-foot-tall rowdies with long hair and guitars. They no longer play with toys, unless you count computers and skateboards.

We gave away all our Transformers years ago, along with the plastic soldiers and Pok‚mons and Legos that had accumulated over time. But I still watch where I step in bare feet, in case we overlooked something that will transform my normal shambling gait into the ooch-ouch dance of years past.

When I first saw the ads for the "Transformers" film, I winced, battered by unpleasant memories. The rest of the family is enthusiastic about the movie, if for no other reason than nostalgia. So we'll go see it, and no doubt be awed as the machines morph into giant scorpions or city-destroying robots or massive mechanical representations of something really scary, such as Rosie O'Donnell.

No one in the theater will be more frightened than me. I'll be remembering how little plastic toys transformed me into a doofus.