Kids Rule

As the year winds down and reflection becomes the obvious mode of thought you sit around caught up in the expected things people get wrapped up in. Answers you gave to questions you were asked throughout the year somehow come back to haunt you. You imagine that next year all of this year's faults and failures will be rectified by the delusions of grandeur you assemble into New Year's resolutions. You try to remain interested in the work you're doing. You try to create excitment and a sense of hope so that maybe you'll feel something real during the holidays. It's an old dance and there's no getting away from it.

Today, after I dropped the kids off at school and my wife left for work I sat down with a cup of coffee and started going through emails. After answereing two or three I lost focus and stared out the window at nothing in particular. Then I watched a little drone hover down from the sky and land at my accross-the-street neighbor's house and drop a package. A few minutes later another one arrived at the front steps of the house next door. Then the same type of drone dropped down in front of my window, veered slightly to my left and then flew away without the box it was carrying.

I opened the door and looked at the package. It was unmarked. I knew right away that I was part of something stupid, some kind of marketing expereiment, but I didn't know exactly what kind. I picked up the package and brought it inside.

I texted my wife and asked her if she was expecting anything. "No" she said. Ok, I thought. this is deffinitley something stupid.

I got back to work. I had a hundred and fifty emails to sort through and time was quickly ticking away. I couldn't stop thinking about the box. It wasn't too heavy and it felt like whatever was in it was secured against the walls. I imagined that it was recording equipment and that I was was being observed. I answered 20 emails in 3 hours. Then I got the box and went outside.

The boxes on my neighbors' front porches remained untouched. I wondered if they were home. All of a sudden I heard the whirring of drone and out of nowhere it swooped down and picked up the box at the neighbor's house directly in fron of mine. Five minutes later it came back and picked up the box on the porch of the house to the left of them. I just stood their holding my box. What if something cool was in the box?

When I went back inside my phone was ringing. It was my boss.

"Hey Jim. Yeah, I'm going to jump on that in a sec. I had a lot of emails to sort through. All of them, they were all about the updates. People are a little confused. They think the changes were too drastic. Yeah, I'm goign to reach out to her and try to schedule a meeting for next Tuesday. Alright. Everything else is good. I had this strange package delivered to my door today by a drone. Yeah, I don't know, maybe. I'll get her a one way ticket to your house if that's the case."

I got back to work and lost track of time. The next time I looked out the window the sky was turning purple and the clouds were catching the the orange hues from the sunset. I looked at my watch and wondered where my day had gone. Why had I stopped caring about the box and it's contents? I decided to open it.

I placed it onthe bar in my kitchen and sliced open the tape running across the top of the box. Immediately the flaps started sagging. I lifted the flaps and found a what appeared to be a weighted box taped to the inside of the box. On all sides there were weighted boxes. The one on the bottom did in fact have a recorder on it. I took it outside and poured water over it. As I stood there holding the hose running water over the recording device I imagined having talked about this box to someone at somepoint. I imagined that somehow some company had puchased that conversation from some technology company that used some tool to record my conversation. Then I heard the whirring again and when I looked up the little drone was flying above me, it's camera pointed at my face. I tried spraying it but it flew away.

That night after the family had eaten dinner and we departed for our corners of the house to do the things we do to wind down. I heard my son yelling for me to come to his room.

"Dad, dad it's our house and it's you. You're on King Kid."

I looked at the screen and watched as I stepped out onto the doorstep and picked up the package and walked back inside. The segment was called The World is Your Oyster and it was filled with commentary about how nobody cares about mystery anymore.

"Weren't you excited to get that box from King Kid, dad?"

"Not really. It was unmarked and I had too much work to do. Plus it didn't have anything in it other than recording equipment. All he wanted to do was listen to us."

"Why didn't you talk to it? Maybe he would've talked back."

My segment culminated with me running the hose of the recorder and was follwed up by a close up shot of a man eating a cheesburger.

King Kid could be heard saying "What made you talk directly into the device?"

"I was just curious, to know if it would talk back", replied the man.

"And now we're here."

I looked at my son as he stared into the screen on his computer.

"Sometimes things happen for fun, dad."