Notes on
Protecting the Vital Organs
by Wendy Parker
It has
recently come to my attention that children of
today are delicate creatures made of silk and
balsa wood. I came to this conclusion while
watching a young mother prepare her child for a
bike ride in the local park. After she secured
his specially handcrafted mouthpiece, she fixed a
seven-hundred dollar Kevlar helmet to his head
and placed his prescription protective eye wear
over that. She then proceeded to help him into
his shin guards, knee and elbow pads and
fingerless riding gloves. This ensemble was
completed with tiny padded bike shorts that made
the kid look as if he had a zucchini in his pants.
By the time she had him geared up, it was dark
and he never actually got to ride the bike, but
his safety was well appointed, and his mother had
achieved the gold standard in vital organ
protection.
Apparently,
the species has taken a turn for the worse since
I was a child. Human beings are no longer able to
withstand the effects of such horrors as sunlight,
tap water and canned meat products. I have it on
good authority that it will soon be illegal to
leave your home without the benefit of rigid
skull protection and violators will be harshly
fined and forced to watch many consecutive hours
of The O’Reilly Report. It has also been
rumored that arch support will be mandated and
all outdoor activities will be strictly limited
to those that can be performed while completely
encased in highly reflective material.
Growing up, I
distinctly remember being hauled around in the
hatchback of a 1970 AMC Gremlin. My mother and
her sister would load me and my two cousins into
the carbon monoxide-filled death chamber, give us
opened tin cans of Vienna Sausages and Kool-aide
filled sippy cups, slam the hatch and careen
around downtown Atlanta in rush hour traffic at
approximately the speed of light. We happily
bumped along, sticking our little fingers deep
into the sharp-edged cans and stuffing our faces
with greasy, meaty nitrates while drinking the
equivalent of a pound of sugar diluted in tap
water and red dye number two. No one minded being
left alone in the car for hours at a time, no one
ever questioned the quality of care we were
getting, no one wore a seat belt and no one even
considered wearing a helmet while roller skating.
The human race
has become a fat, gelatinous blob cowering behind
attorneys who are paid to enforce the ridiculous
warning labels attached to any and all
purchasable goods. I recently bought a can of
whipped cream that had a caution attached to it
stating that inhalation of the product could
cause respiratory distress. My theory is if
you’re stupid enough to stick a can of
whipped cream up your nose and inhale it, then
you deserve to die foaming at the mouth with a
whipped cream can hanging from your face.
Natural
selection has come to a virtual standstill and
communities are now littered with families full
of wandering idiots who adhere strictly to
printed label law. Here’s an idea: use a
little common sense, and try to pass some of it
on to your progeny. And remember, insect spray is
generally poisonous to humans, fire is hot, and
ingesting gasoline is a bad idea. I know, and
you’re welcome.
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