Courtesy DOD
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Categories - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services - Copywriting Articles: Children - Water-Condoms By Web Smith One sunny spring day, I went to pick my son up from the 8th grade. Everything seemed normal as I waited in line, inching closer to the pickup point. As I pulled up to the overhanging roof and spotted my son, things seemed to be suddenly strange. His face was filled with glee and I noticed that the pockets of his cargo pants were stuffed with something. As I looked passed him, I noticed kids were throwing things, running, laughing and screaming. It looked like they were having a water-balloon fight. Uh oh, I thought, someone is about to get in trouble. I wondered why my son wasn't in the middle of it.
As I looked closer, my concern changed to a smile when I saw that the water-balloons were actually water-condoms. I would find out later that the school, in a moment of wisdom and concern, had decided to pass out free condoms even though there had not been one middle-school pregnancy in the district and no reported cases of STDs. An ounce of prevention is worth whatever, they had determined. The school staff had decided that to keep the kids from being too embarrassed to ask for condoms from the nurse, they would just set a big box full in the hallway.
I saw a teacher that I knew smiling and running for his classroom door while he fumbled for his keys. As he arrived at his door, one of the kids hurled a water filled condom in his direction with both hands. It was more of a shot-put than a hurl. It was as if things were in slow motion with the condom taking on different shapes as it floated through the air. It reminded me of the lava lamp I had in college. The weapon fell well short of it's target snapping everything back into reality with a splash. The teacher laughed and entered the safety of his classroom.
Then along came the principle, who was not smiling. “Drop those”, she screamed and the kids promptly obeyed resulting in water splashing up over her patent-leather pumps and into her pantyhose and shoes. “Get in quick”, I said to my son through the car window. "Don't laugh", I said sternly. After we rounded the corner out of view, I said, "Now you can laugh".
However, the fun did not end at the school that afternoon. One of my son's classmates showed up around dinner time and as I prepaired tacos and nachos, they decided to drop water-condoms off of the balcony of our third floor condo. Suddenly, as I was putting the tacos on the table, I heard loud laughter and then, "Dad!", "Dad!". "Oh crap", I thought. "Whatever you guys did, I am hiding in the closet until you get through dealing with it", I announced as I moved towards the balcony. As I moved out onto the balcony and looked in the direction they were pointing, I saw the cause of the laughter. Helium filled condoms, complete with smiley faces, had been released and were now floating around the county. Our condo was not only on the 3rd floor, but the building was perched part of the way up a hill so we had a nice view that stretched for miles. As I looked out over the valley, I could see 30 or 50 helium-condoms, floating and glistening in the setting sun, headed towards a major city downwind. A couple squad cars even gave chase in an attempt to collect the evidence.
"Can we do that, Dad?" "No. The cops are already looking for who is doing that and if we get caught there's probably going to be a $1,000 fine for littering." "That will eat into your video game budget for well more than a year." "But, they release helium balloons all the time." "I keep telling you that life is not always fair and this is one of those times." "After dinner, we'll go pick up Mario Kart instead." Secretly, I thought about renting a windowless van and driving about 10 miles upwind with a helium tank tucked away in back. We could fill the van, release them all at once, and skiddadle. "How many of those things do you guys have left", I asked. "Maybe 50", was the reply. "It might take a big U-Haul", I thought.
On Saturday morning, I joined my regular foursome at the local golf course for our weekly round and mentioned the incident to one of my playing partners. As it turned out, his son was one of the culprits who had been apprehended and he had received a very angry call from the principle who, among other things, had told him that that was not what the condoms were intended for.
He said that he had apologized and assured the principal that, from that point on, he would make sure that his son only used condoms for their intended purpose.
Web Smith is a former telecom and computer industry executive who has founded or been a founder of seven technology companies. He is currently a copywriter, sales and marketing consultant, and website owner. You can access some of his work here.
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