K-9 Teen
I was excited to read in the Indy that the police department has a new recruit. He’s the four-legged kind and is a Belgium Malnois. He looks like a German shepherd, but like its name, drinks only Belgian brews and makes mall noise in spiriting recalcitrant teenagers out of the Apple store. There has been an alarming trend amongst teenagers to spend their entire waking hours in a parallel universe called computer technology. The new K-9 officer named Ranger has been hired to sniff out and confiscate all mobile devices. The police department hopes to return teenagers to their parents, where they can get proper instruction about the Dewey Decimal system and get away from the clutches of Google, a place notorious for buying term papers and providing hacking instructions on how to change test scores and grades. Google and Apple detractors believe these companies are the money behind the state’s latest mandate called Common Core. Mandate bashers believe the law is rotten to the core due to all the technology spending inherent to the mandate.
“I have two teenage sons. I haven’t seen them in years. They spend all their time hooked to computer gizmos. What’s a mother to do?” asked the desperately seeking mother, named Susan. The guidance counselor turned computer bounty hunter named Cleaver gave some sound advice. “You have to fight fire with fire. You must first get more computer-savvy than your sons. Then you can turn them back to the carbon copy paper days of yore, “ explained the bounty hunter. “I’m so distraught, I’m drinking more than two bottles of whiteout a night,” cried the anguished mother. “With my binging, I’ll soon cease to exist and my sons won’t be able to see me, if they ever do come back.” With a hug and squeeze to stay strong, the bounty hunter consoled, “You’ll be around. We’ll take the initiative. First, you’ll go to their world, as a mothering avatar. And then second, you’ll bring them back to the ways of everyone’s mothering idol, June Cleaver. Leave It to Cleaver. I’ll bring those boys back. Mom raised me to be mother’s little helper.”
Cleaver took to the chase. He went to the Woman’s Club that pledged $14,000 to fund the K-9 program and arranged to backstop the $13,000 shortfall by padding his snoop and snatch bill to desperately seeking Susan on the condition that he could secure the services of Ranger before the police department took over in January. The Woman’s Club, who had deep ties to June Cleaver’s raising methods, hastily agreed. Ranger was trained to identify Siri’s voice and grab offensive equipment. Ranger learned to distinguish smelly socks from one teenager to the next. Between training sessions, Cleaver and Ranger bonded over Stella at Brussels Bistro. Soon it was time to put the training into action.
The next morning, the new dynamic duo put off finding the lost boys until their hangovers dissipated. By noon, they were rearing to go and fetch the boys back home. Ranger filled with a snout full of stinky socks soon found the boys lost in a world of gaming in the Apple Store. As they were about to make their cult retrieval, a computer voice piped up. “Watch out boys. Cleaver is behind you,” warned the Susan avatar. “Show Ranger his mother’s avatar and then let him sniff Cleaver’s avatar socks.”
Cleaver was apprehended and returned by Ranger to the 1950 world of Army men, Hula Hoops, and Dream Pets, that were miniature stuffed animals made of velveteen. Desperately seeking Susan went forward with her boys and established the year’s biggest gaming hit called Dreamy Pets, whose annual charitable contributions support Ranger and other K-9s like him across the nation.
Good luck Ranger. I wear a service jacket with your name on it.
Mark is a transplant to Laguna from Chicago. He occasionally writes the guest column “Pet Peeves.” His recently deceased border collie, Pokey, is his muse and ghostwriter.
