Almond Joy or Mounds?

Buenos Dias Virtual Readers; Welcome to another edition of Bent Goods and another winter of our discontent. Sorry, Shakespeare, it is what it is.

It always seems to surprise me, although I shouldn't be surprised, the level of stupidity that the human being can rise to. Or maybe it's fall to. Either way, just when I think it can't get any worse, it does.

I find myself well on my way to becoming that cranky old man from the ancient jello commercials. Except I'm more of an, "Hey you kids, stay the fuck away from my jello tree or I will beat your ass into submission." This would be said while brandishing some sort of axe or sword, just to drive my point home. Of course in this day and age that would only get you a trip to the grey bar hotel and likely a psychiatric evaluation even though those little bastards were stealing my jello.

Yes, we've become this society of political correctness that even stating the obvious or the truth will be enough to persecute. We've also become a society where common sense and respect for our fellow human being has also been persecuted. What to do? Gender Reveal!!!!!

When I was a younger person and someone was having a baby the last thing anyone knew or cared about was the gender of the baby, although back that far they used the term, sex of the baby. This is a change I totally agree with. It was a waiting and a guessing game and the end result was a shitty cigar with, "It's a Girl!!" or boy printed on the wrapper. And woe to anyone who actually tried to smoke that dried up piece of horseshit. The other result was that a lot of nurseries got another coat of paint to get the colour just right otherwise that infant might get confused about their gender based on the colour of their room.

Then, along come the eighties, it was in this decade that the ultrasound was used to determine the gender of the babies in their mother's womb. By the latter half of the eighties, it had become routine in the US of A. You can say goodbye to shitty cigars and the confusion of your baby by getting that paint colour just right. So this is probably where my diatribe should end, right? I mean what else could we possibly want for our expecting parents? All is well that ends . . .

It turns out that not everyone wanted to know, in advance, the gender of their babies. They wanted to stick to the old ways of, here's a cigar and Fuck! I have to paint it again. I best break out the lead-based paint and fix the colour of our baby's room. And I should tuck that asbestos back in the ceiling because it clashes with the colour.

Okay. Great. We now have the best of both worlds and the choice is up to the parents on whether or not they'd like to know in advance the gender of their baby. Once again, all is well that ends . . .

Let's jump ahead a couple of decades and see where we are at, shall we? What in the name of all that is holy is going on now? GENDER REVEAL!!!! Yay!!!!!

So, in case you live under a rock, or maybe you are smart enough to just not give a fuck, gender reveal is the latest and greatest thing since, oh I don't know, the ultrasound? Here's how it works. You get pregnant, hopefully, it's because you want to spend all of your hard-earned money on anything and everything but yourself. Or because you've always desired this crushing responsibility that you carry with you till the day you, thankfully, die. I digress.

You get pregnant, you have the ultrasound, but, they don't give the results to the parents, no, no, no, they give the results to a trusted friend. Then a party is planned and in some fun and trendy way the gender of the baby is revealed. There are plenty of variations of this trendy celebration so don't @ me if you did yours differently. Like anyone is reading this to @, @ me.

This is where the triumph of human stupidity comes in. I shit you not. The idea that bursting a balloon or cracking open a pinata and have some pink or blue sparkly shit come falling out is cute right? Someone will be tasked with the camera to catch the real-time facial expressions of the parents. Fun!

Now because everything, and I mean everything is a competition with the human race, the idiots rise to the occasion.

In 2017 a fella thought that it would be a good idea to shoot a target filled with a coloured substance to reveal the gender of their baby. Seeing as how this involves a gun and shooting, at a gender reveal, I'll let you guess the country of origin. He also thought it would be a good idea to put the substance Tannerite in the target as well. Tannerite is highly explosive. I repeat, Tannerite is highly explosive! The explosion sparked a fire that spread for thousands of acres. Eight hundred firefighters worked to contain the blaze that engulfed more than forty-five thousand acres over a week. He pled guilty and was sentenced to five years probation and eight-point one million dollars in restitution. The baby's gender was not immediately clear.

I want to be fair it isn't just in the ole USSA that this sort of stupid shit is happening. In Australia, a man lit his car on fire while performing a "burnout" The blue cloud of smoke turned into just regular ole smoke when the rear tires caught on fire and burned his car up. No one was hurt but this dodger had to pay a thousand dollar fine and lost his license for six months.

It was a boy!

But because life is a competition for the human race, let's head back to the USA. A family in Tennessee began experimenting with different types of explosive material in hopes of creating a gender revel device that tops them all. The device did indeed explode and a piece of shrapnel hit a fifty-six-year-old grandmother in the head killing her.

Baby's gender? No longer of consequence.

Now, this is a horrible accident and the intention was not to have someone die during the reveal. That being said, if you bring things that explode to the gender reveal, it could mean that someone will be seriously hurt or killed. Because things that explode, explode.

My advice, like anyone cares, is to keep it simple stupid. Cut a cake or poke a balloon or fart fairy dust. Because when the pink or blue smoke clears you'd rather not have red on your hands. Hell, you could even consider going old school and handing out dried up rolls of horseshit. Or hand out either Almond Joy or Mounds chocolate bars. Everyone loves them some chocolate.

AW

"Almond Joys got nuts, Mounds don't." -Commercial jingle-