I was watching MTV with my daughters the other day, and they had a commercial from this show that has video clips of people basically getting hurt doing stupid things. I was just cringing until they showed one boy lying on the floor, and another boy jumped off a chair and landed on the floor-boy’s private parts — with both feet.
He could rupture a testicle that way! And what if the boy missed and landed on the other boy’s stomach? He could rupture his appendix! He could die. Have we learned nothing from the Great Houdini?
I shot out of my chair and ran up to my son’s room. Teenagers sometimes just don’t realize. I described the commercial to my son and said, “You realize you could rupture a testicle that way, right?” I was tempted to add “and put your eye out,” but it didn’t make any damn sense, so I held that back.
My son just stared at me for a minute. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No!”
“Cuz you’d have to be pretty stupid to do that. So you must think I’m stupid.”
“No, no, of course not, not you, you’re … I just didn’t want you to do something, you know, what would you say?, like, I don’t know, like … stupid.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“No, of course not.”
“Since you don’t have testicles, and I do, I don’t think you need to tell me that getting hit in the testicles would hurt.”
“I just wanted to make sure you knew that you could rupture a testicle that way.” He looked at me in stony silence. “And maybe put an eye out. Okay, I’m leaving now.”
But … you really could rupture a testicle that way, guys. Seriously.
It’s amazing the stupid stuff people do to get on TV.
alisaacarter
Alisa A. Carter 