Monday, November 19, 2007

Parents Groups Are Turning Against You Again Day!

Your latest invention is not being warmly received by parents. You pitched it as the answer to parents who want to keep their teenage kids from going places they’re not supposed to go when they’re out at night unsupervised. It’s a small, plastic charge that gets inserted via the teen’s nostril and it’s connected to a map of neighborhoods that are divided into green and red zones as designated by the parents. Should the child enter a red zone, the charge detonates.

“So it’s a bomb,” the leader (very pushy) of the latest parents group to get all not-without-my-daughter on you says. “You’re suggesting I put a bomb in my child’s face.”

“It’s a very small charge sir,” you explain with a tired sigh. “It will do no more harm than if your child popped a very bad pimple.”

“My child has good skin,” one of the other parents will say. “You really think I should put a bomb in her face?”

“You really want her crossing those tracks? And you know the ones I mean.”

Everyone quiets down. They know the tracks you mean.

“How do we get the bomb-- I mean, the charge, in our kids’ faces?” a parent asks.

Your assistant starts handing out the barbiturates while you demonstrate how to discreetly dose a glass of iced tea while setting the dinner table.

“Two of these capsules will knock your kid out for four hours. The insertion procedure only takes five minutes. That gives you a bonus three hours and fifty five minutes of not hearing your child ask you why he can’t have a car.”

The parents group laughs as one. Then they all line up to buy bombs to put in their children’s faces. You could sell stripes to a zebra.

Happy Parents Groups Are Turning Against You Again Day!