Man. It just occurred to me: kids are just plain screwed. I just saw an ad that made me realize that if parents play their cards right, technology can ruin the existence of every teenager in the world. RUIN, I tell you.
Picture the scene:
A teenaged son calls his mom, dutifully "checking in" at the appointed hour of ten. [For your convenience, Truth will appear in brackets.]
"Hello."
"Hi, Mom."
"Where are you?"
"At Tom's house" [No, he is not.]
"What are you doing?"
"Watching a movie." [Drinking a beer. He now is hiding in the basement closet to dull the sound.]
"What's that noise?"
"The TV. We're watching Aliens." [That was not the alien roaring; it was Tom -- who is also not at his own house -- puking all over the door to the very closet in which our hero hides.]
"Oh."
"Yeah, so, I'm going to go now and watch the rest of the movie." [He's going to go now and drink the rest of the beer.]
"Are you drinking?"
"No." [Yes.]
"Jimmy."
"Mom, no." [Mom, yes.]
"Show me where you are."
"Uh. What? Show you?"
"Yes. You wanted the new-fangled 4G phone with the video-talk thingy. Show me where you are."
[Jimmy binds up in places he didn't learn about in anatomy class, in which he carries a C-minus, which his mother knows about, owing to the advent of computer grade books with parental access. Jimmy vomits inside the closet.]
"What was that?"
"The movie, Mom. I gotta go."
"Dad's coming to pick you up. Where are you?"
"What? Uh -- I'm at Tom's." [No, he's not.]
"No, you are not. The phone shows you at . . . 423 Ocean Ave in Oceantown. Call me back on video. Right now."
Jimmy laments the weight that's been saddled upon him by his new Christmas present. Santa is a frigging turd. [No, he is not.] Jimmy calls her back on video. Jimmy has no choice.
Mom sees the boy's face, sweaty and pale. The arms of woefully out-of-fashion coats are lined up behind him. Mom doesn't know whether she is more disgusted by the garrish garments or by Jimmy's wan, drawn, post-vomitic expression.
"Are you in a closet?"
Jimmy is no dummy. Jimmy knows he is doomed. "Just come get me, I guess."
"Dad's already half way there. If you are smart, you'll just stay in the closet until he knocks."
Jimmy ponders the possibilites and decides sitting still in his own filth just might be the wisest move. "Are you gonna take my phone away?"
"Nope." She hangs up.
Mom dances a triumphant dance with her phone, which she kisses repeatedly, triggering an "ap" that is able to find bonfires in the local woods via satellite. She shuts it off.
"Not yet, my pretty. Not yet . . ."
Overhead shot of a suburban neighborhood. We hear an echoing, evil laugh emanating from Jimmy's mom's house, which is joined by similar laughs from other houses in the neighborhood, then from the world, until we are looking down on a globe that is ringing with the Halloween-witch laughter of billions of victorious techno-parents.
Mommageddon has begun.
Muuwahhahahahahahha...
ReplyDeleteBahhahhhahahahahhaa...seriously LMAO! really, my ass is gone...laughed it off. This is me, my life with 2 teenagers who believe that they are smarter than I, AND that I was NEVER a teenager. Great stuff, man.
ReplyDeleteCara
Cara -- if you had a futuristic homing device attached to your ass, you would be able to track it down . . .
ReplyDeleteThanks!