Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
I must admit that I had never heard of Estimable Flavinoids until our daughter Gumption Miranda demanded that my wife and I buy her the whole set (including the rare Red, Purple and Pantyhose characters). As a matter of principle, my wife, Franchot Kisses, and I held out on buying her the complete set (as well as the DVD box set of the director’s cut of the complete TV series, the IMAX comic book series and a “Whirly Cycle” that I doubt Stephen Hawking could figure out how to make work) for three days. Two if you don’t include evenings.
Yeah, sure, judge all you want, but, unless you have had to raise a four year-old girl, you really don’t know the meaning of the phrase “hypersonic whine.” Even if you have worked for NASA.
GM lost interest in playing with the toys after about a week and a half – a new record for her! Ye…ay? Although she wasn’t playing with them, she hadn’t entirely lost interest in them: GM posted something called “estimable flavinoids are doodyheads” on her Farcebook page. It consisted of judgments such as “vanilla hopscotch flavinoid is a total doodyhead” and “Trolley amber Flavinoid is sort of nice, but still a doodyhead!” for the entire line of 27 action figures (and Bureaucrat Flavinoid).
Okay, it wasn’t exactly James Joyce (whose reviews of GI Josephine action figures were legendary for their playful use of language and dense incomprehensibility), but at least GM was using her words. Capital letters even started appearing, which was a sign of her growing maturity as a writer. It seemed harmless enough.
“estimable flavinoids are doodyheads” got 127,000 page views in the first hour after it was posted.
Now, you might think that a negative review from a four year-old would do damage to a toy line’s reputation, or be completely ignored, but sales of Estimable Flavinoids tripled the week after GM posted her review. Corporations notice things like that. We started getting free toys from other companies. Soon, we had so many, we had to rent a storage unit so we had someplace to keep them all. Then, we had to rent a second one. Then, we started selling some of the used toys on ehBay to pay for the storage units for the rest.
GM could do no wrong. She started posting pictures showing her breaking toys she didn’t like (but it was her mother and I – alright, mostly her mother – who had to deal with the temper tantrums and cleaning up the mess). She instituted a zero to four poops rating system (which should have ended the whole numerical rating phenomenon, but was, instead, wildly popular). No matter what she did, the number of page views she got soared.
Around the time it topped one million views per post, Gumption Miranda’s behaviour started to deteriorate. She demanded a constant supply of Skittles, except for red, blue and magenta – and they don’t even make them in magenta! Then, she threatened to rate us if we didn’t get her her own trailer. Where could she have gotten such an idea? She throws a hissy fit whenever we have to drive down the street with her when we need to get groceries!
We’ve created a monster! Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with her?
Sincerely,
Heartrending Balsamic from Hoboken
Yo, Hearty,
Send your daughter to her room without dinner for a couple of weeks and she’ll soon learn the error of her – no, wait, that could get you in trouble with Child Services. Give her extra desserts for a couple of weeks to bribe her to behave bett – no, wait, that will just make her think she’s being rewarded for being naughty. You could always force her to watch a 17 hour Iron Chef marathon to show her…to prove to her…to…to…to…
Misses The Tech Answer Guy thinks I’d make a great dad. She’s the only person in several universes who holds this opinion, and some of them contain other versions of herself.
Just remember: the longevity of Internet fame makes fruit flies look like Methuselah. I read that on a MySpaced page a few years ago. Trust me on his: somebody will come along who makes more creative use of the term “doodyhead,” and your child will quickly be forgotten, washed up, a has been at the age of four.
Sad for her. Excellent for you. Because nothing lets a child know how much you love her as much as your exultation at her return to obscurity.
Uhh…have I mentioned that I may not be that great with kids?
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: On those rare occasions when a “Just remember:” appears in the body of an advice column, there won’t be one in the kiss-off. Unless you’ve got a diedectic…uhh, diabetic? No. Eiphelactic…eiphalutin…eitedic…umm, unless you’ve got a really, really good memory, you won’t miss it.