I WANT DOWALD'S PAPA! DOWALD'S

“Dowal’s. Papa, I want Dowal’s.” The Boy told me as I walked back into the room and plopped down on the couch beside him, just as Mr Spongeboob Squire Pants popped his annoyingly awesome yellowness back on the tube before us.

“Dow? What is it that you say my son?”

“Papa, Papa,” Mr Pants eagerly said as he looked straight at me, as I was looking bug eyed straight in his pupils,”

“Yes son, I am here… Yeees, what is it……” “Papa…” “What whuuuuuuuut?”

“Uhm….I want Dowald’s. Dowald’s. Have some? Can I have some?”

“Yeah buddy. But uh, I don’t really know what Dowald’s is.”

“DOWALD’S!”

“Sure sure, you can have it! Take it.” And that was the end of it. Dowald’s though, I haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell he was so gluttonously asking me for. For the most part, now at 27 months, I can understand everything he says. And he can imitate nearly anything I tell him to. (Even damnit, (as if I would really ask him to repeat that though, (sometimes they just eavesdrop on my conversations and get me in trouble with their verbatim recollection of it’s contents later on when their mother happens to be around)) But this was utterly beyond my capacity to translate.

So we sat and watched Spongeboob. The commercials came on so I pried the controller from Mr Pant’s filthy lil’ hands and started fast forwarding the commercials. And then this….

“DOWALD’S Papa! Dowald’s!”

And at once I knew what he was talking about. For a fleeting moment, a mere flash before my eyes that could have been missed if I blinked too long, a brightly colored Mc Donald’s happy meal box flashed before me on the screen. Nearly subliminally as the commercials flew by in high motion on the tube in variations of bright colors filled with brief glances of various toys and cartoon ads…..with a sneakily placed Mc Donalds commercial jabbed right in the middle of it all. So sneaky they are. Mc Mother Fucken Dowald’s. So I rewound it and saw the commercial. A cleverly animated commercial with all sorts of happy little shit heads eating their happy little fucken meals, as if the contents of those happy meals were the absolute best thing in the world for them, making them the happiest little snot nosed pea brained kids in the whooooole world, as if every kid should have one of those damn things or else they are a total loser and not with the in crowd, as if I am a bad parent for not getting my boy a happy meal at the precise moment he spits out his first begging for a happy meal word…..as if. And there it was before me, sending us all those messages instantly, subliminally sabotaging my boys psyches.

And I realized that while I was out of the room, no one was there to fast forward the commercials. NoooOoOOOoOoo! Say it isn’t so. How could I of neglected my boy so badly as to subject him to those damned brain washing commercials? I’m a failure, a complete and utter commercial fast forwarding failure.

Who watches commercials anymore anyway? They are now obsolete. Have been rendered so by my network media tank hooked up to my system with several terabytes of memory that holds millions of movies and shows, and the satellites ability to record and fast forward. Commercials. Bah. I scoff at their very existence and the marketing geniuses behind them. May they be damned to an eternal hell filled with their very own commercials being played before them for eternity. You know what, I bet each and every person behind the design of those commercials fast forwards them. You know they do.

So my boy was subjected to a Mc’y D’s commercial for the first time, as I was out of the room. And now he wants a damn happy meal. Well, he probably also remembered what it was when his granny (cough cough, mothers side, cough cough) got him one that one time. Yeah, and then Lilly threatened that if she keeps feeding him junk her visitation rights will be removed. Serious. It happened. Yeah, the wife went there. Can’t really say if it the threat worked though. Can’t really say.

But now the Mc D’s brand is burned in his poor little brain forever. Everytime he see’s those damnable golden arches, the commercial will replay through his little chicken nugget craving brain, bursting forth a wash of serotonin in his lil head making him feel so good as he imagines taking a bite of nugget with three sauces on it while simultaneously dipping a handful of fries in his chocolate shake and stuffing all that in his mouth at the same time while taking a sip of his seriously watered down orange soda with the straw that is so carefully plugged in the corner of his mouth as he swallows, no chewing, just swallowing. Oh you know that’s how you did it. That’s how I did it anyway. And if I can help it. If I can resist the damned temptation of those beautiful golden arches dripping with gooey ketchup as they sneer at me in my rear view, I will never, ever take the boy there. Never……eeeeveeeer….mmmmmmmmmmmm….chicken nuggets……frys……with a choco shake……ahhhhhhhhhh…must have mcdowals….