I Shot the Sheriff. But I Did Not Flush the Sea-Monkeys.
Remember Sea-Monkeys? They came in a packet and you put them in water and, supposedly, they came alive.
I was never really sure if they did or not because it seemed to take an awfully long time. I mean days and days of nothing happening and my mom saying, “Susan, throw that stinky stuff down the drain!” And then one day, when I was at a Girl Scout meeting pretending to give a thin mint about achieving a sash full of cooking, sewing, and babysitting badges, a.k.a., the original TGI Fridays “flair”, she seized her chance to chuck the whole thing in the toilet. I came home, spied the carnage, and thought, Holy canoli, we’re going to hell.
I was certain we’d committed murder and, being a nice Irish-Italian Catholic kid, equally certain I was going to burn for all eternity with Hitler. And Stalin. And Mussolini.
Not to mention my mom.
“Susan, get your hair off your face. Benito, don’t you think she looks better with her hair off her face? See, Susan? Even Mr. Mussolini agrees.”
Just the thought of being trapped for the rest of time with Joanie jawing about my hair with the likes of killers, rapists, and whoever gave The Blob the green light was enough to send me straight to confession. They cleared me, gave me two Hail Marys, and one solid piece of advice: Sea-Monkeys are for chumps. Kill a Chia Pet, missy, and you’ll never get a direct flight to the Pearly Gates.
All these years later, I still think of the Sea-Monkeys. The guilt’s gone but I’m intrigued by the idea of a pet in a pill. Why not, right? We have pills for pain. Pills for depression. Pills that prevent my colon from seizing like somebody filled it with cement. Love those pills, and Wellbutrin is wonderful, too.
So why not pills that can do really cool things?
Here at Suzy’s Pharmaceuticals, the imaginary GlaxoSmithKline/Forest Labs/Merck-like conglomerate I just made up, we’ve got several revolutionary pills in the pipeline.
For starters, there’s Insta-Friend. We developed this one for my sweet son and the millions of socially awkward kids just like him. If you met my boy, you’d love him, which would immediately identify you as an adult because kids his own age would rather have their iPhones impaled to their foreheads than be forced to sit with him at lunch. I’d cry about it, but when I do I can’t see because the protein clouds my contacts. (Yes, we’re working on a pill for that too. You take it with wine and everything looks better.)
Insta-Friend’s great because it works for kids of all ages. And there’s no worry if your child can’t swallow a pill. Why? Because you take it for him! Simply pop it and POOF, the perfect friend appears. Your child likes to play basketball? What a coincidence; so does Insta-Friend! Your little one’s most comfortable coloring? Insta-Friend’s packing a carton of Crayolas! And there’s a free added bonus: Every Insta-Friend comes with a box of Kleenex because you’re going to blubber when you see how happy your kid is.
And speaking of kids, if yours think bathing is something that should be done once a quarter whether they need it or not¸ you’ll want to consider Clean Freak. Created with my piggish progeny in mind, Clean Freak dissolves instantly in junior’s fruit juice, and works immediately upon consumption.
That’s right. Children who just seconds before thought nothing of working their ear wax into their hair to hold it place (“It’s called bed head, mom!”) have been known to jump up, peek down their pants and holler, “I’ve got grass stains on my groin!” Then, fast as Richard Petty, they race to the shower and actually USE SOAP. I know; it’s a miracle. I’d cry, but, well, we’ve already covered that.
Of course, all this began with the idea of a pill that can turn into a pet. And while we’ve yet to perfect growing a four-legged friend in a test tube, recent research indicates that a toilet bowl could be the ticket. At least as it pertains to dogs. We’ve had some major success growing mutts in this manner. Purebreds, on the other hand, won’t perform in the potty, tend to demand Fiji water, and are thus more likely to be flushed.
Which, now that I think of it, is the exact same fate my Sea-Monkeys met.
So I guess I really am going to hell. I didn’t kill a Chia Pet but a “possible” purebred pup? You can bet I’m going to burn. Or at least do a stint in the holding pen. Look for my next column, Suzy Goes to Purgatory, in which I bug God to bring Insta-Friend to fruition, manage to work the Lord’s last nerve, and wind up sentenced to spend eternity with my mom and the Sea-Monkeys.
Yeah, they hatched. And they’ve got something to say about my hair.
Susan McCorkindale writes about life on the funny farm on her daily blog, or just buy the book, Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl.
An original DC Metro Moms post.
