Recipe For Disaster

Allan and I were recently discussing torture - the kind that is inflicted on prisoners of war. We know how it should be done. Start off with sleep deprivation - that part they seem to have down. But here's where it really gets effective. Instead of using dogs or water or whatever, kids should be added to the mixture. Specifically in scenarios such as, I don't know...being sleep deprived and driving ten miles per hour down the freeway when you are late for a dinner with a yappy five-year-old, a whining three-year-old, and a sleeping newborn. OR, offer the hope of a nap to one who has been sleep-deprived for what feels like years and then put them in a room with aforementioned five- and three-year olds, with a newborn who will wake at any moment in the next room. If these recipes for torture were to be followed, one could hear profound statements of a broken will like "If you two don't cool it, I will pull this car off the road!" (knowing that there is no way that you would actually pull off, given that you are driving ten miles per hour on the freeway and would not dare lose another foot of ground), sometimes accompanied by the trying-to-drive-yet-make-contact-with-the-bare-calf-in-the-backseat and-not-kill-all-of-us move. OR, my personal favorite, "If you..[pause]...do anything that I don't like, you will be sitting on your bed for twenty minutes!" (knowing full well that the speaker will never fulfill said threat due to the reality that the speaker will be the worst one off having to listen to whining and crying for twenty minutes). This threat, hypothetically speaking of course, may be followed with a conversation like: "Is twenty minutes a long time?" "Yes." "A really long time?" "Yes." Then a couple of minutes later with a guilt-inducing plea from the torture accomplice, "Mom, can I move my leg a little?"

Put these into practice and the strongest of wills can be broken.