Tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live Jimmy did a bit where a guy at a candy counter played practical jokes on would-be customers while pretending to offer them free candy samples. For the adults, the guy offered samples from a candy-laden tray, then flipped the tray over when people took a piece — thereby making them think they’d caused all the candy to fall on the floor.
This was all well and good, but then he targeted a woman with two cute little blonde girls in matching pink tank tops. For these victims, the plot was more diabolical. He gave the little girls an enormous white shopping bag and told them they could keep as much candy as they could get into the bag within 30 seconds. This, understandably, pleased the girls. The mother looked suspicious.
The girls went to town on the candy, selecting their treats slowly at first and then speeding up as they gained confidence. At the end of the 30 seconds, the bottom of the bag fell out, leaving the little girls with nothing.
Well. These little girls took it well enough, but if it had been me (awkward grammatical issue: the correct pronoun is “I”) at that age, offered the trick bag of candy, I would have been The Girl Who Cried. There’s always one, and usually I was the one. So I took this personally. What kind of a lesson is this to teach children — that grownups lie? That the bottoms of bags fall out? That what looks like a lovely opportunity is actually just a prank for a studio audience? I tell you, they took it well, but I would have cried.
They got a consolation prize – an overlarge plastic bag of Pixie Stix. Again, all well and good, but what if they didn’t like Pixie Stix? What about the day, maybe a week from now, when they’ve had all the Pixie Stix they can stand, and they start reliving the experience and growing resentful of the mean man who made them promises and didn’t keep them? How much could that resentment grow? How long would it take, exactly, before these betrayed young ladies begin plotting revenge? Do we need to teach two single ladies who aren’t even into double digits yet that there are men who will lie to them?
This is dangerous territory, People. Maybe they aren’t crying today, maybe they won’t cry tomorrow, but someday, perhaps in a Pixie Stix-induced fit of mania, they might choose to get even, and THEN all hell will break loose.
I’m telling you, it would have been better if they’d just cried and got it over with.
This is what’s wrong with America, people. This is where the trouble starts.
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