They Really Should Rent Children
Thursday, September 30, 2004
For those oh-so-embarrassing situations where you really want to do something childish but don’t have a good excuse
I always felt that way when I went to see a Disney movie that was particularly childish. Or didn’t you ever get the urge to watch the first Spy Kids? Or get a happy meal? Or jump in the play pen with all the plastic balls? Somehow doing all that is pardonable if you’re toting a small child along. Then it’s “coming down to their level” and being “empathetic.” But let’s face it: we all wanted to do that stuff anyway, regardless of the presence of a child or not.
This past Sunday, my classmate Tanya and I went to the Bronx Zoo for a class assignment. Our job was to look at the interactive media available in two separate exhibits and evaluate them based on effectiveness and a list of other criteria. That’s when I began to wish I had brought a spare child along.
What better way to evaluate whether an exhibit is interesting than tossing a kid at it and seeing what he or she does? Is the kid interested? Is (s)he actually learning anything? What caught his/her attention first? Was it worth sticking to for more than 30 seconds? All these things would have been great to observe, much like a field biologist in the jungle, observing gorillas.
The zoo was beautiful and the experience was great! Tanya and I had a lot of fun getting lost, trying to find camouflaged animals in pens, and making fun of the Okapis for having silly looking posteriors (poor blighters!). I was really impressed with the quality of the zoo stuff. One zoo personnel said, “really, people are just coming here to be recognized by the animals. The animals are the ones with the real show!”
In any case, if you start a child-renting service, I expect royalties because you saw it here first! Rent-a-kid: because there’s no need to go through 9 months of pregnancy just to see a kids’ movie!
sooo, how’d the interactive media get rated by you. and how was the effectivness? you can’t leave me hangin!!!
Posted by Ryan Moore on 10/03 at 04:04 PMKathy,
I couldn’t agree with you more, Rent-A-Kid would take off like wild-fire. You know how people tot there ever so precious dogs around the city, and complete strangers just feel compelled to pet your dog, like somehow all dogs are public property!! But there-in lies the beauty and genius of dog-totting. It is a way to meet new people. Thus the worlds best pick-me up line without the awkward feeling of being picked-up. Rent-A-Kid could do the same thing but on higher level, a more serious level, No longer are you just a Lover of Dogs, but a Lover of Children!! Every Politician would be doing it!! No longer would we know the names of each President’s Dog, as The President and the First lady take that stroll off the helicopter and walk across the White House Lawn, but we would know the name of their Rent-A-Kid for that month. The President wins either way you slice it. He’s pro-Kid, more than Pro-Dog. What a message! A Lesson learned; Politically, Kids trump dogs in every situation.
Albie (Alberto)
Posted by on 10/05 at 11:51 AM