I really wish I could make stuff up as good as this. But when I come across events like the following in real life, it serves as a perfect reminder to all of us that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction.
I was reminded today of a young boy I met in California, about eleven years old, who had a strange theory. He was absolutely convinced that inflation was being caused by the U.S. Mint. Now, I've taken a few economics courses in my day and I understand that this is a completely reasonable theory. The more money you make and print, the higher inflation goes up. However, the difference between reality and this kid was that the image he had in his mind of what was going on was that our friendly U.S. Mint executives were sitting in their offices, essentially holding down the "Print" button 24/7 in an evil plot to drive up the inflation rate as high as they could as they laugh maniacally and smoke cigars that become more and more expensive by the second.
I could see that this was the idea he had not only because of the possessed, hypnotic look he had in his eyes as he explained this to me, but because his solution was to nuke the U.S. Mint, and he was dead serious about it. This child looked like he had come straight out of a horror movie and needless to say, he frightened me a great deal. I was quite relieved to know that I would only once have to try and convince him that Jesus still loves him even though the U.S. Mint was apparently run by Satan himself.
It makes me wonder where children get ideas such as these. I always thought it was from crazy parents, but some essays I came across at work today made me think that perhaps my junior high school was one of the few schools in the country that did not offer a class on Conspiracy Theory. Without going into all the painstaking details of the business, in my part-time job I deal with grade-school essays and poems that are sent in for publishing. My job is to type the entries that have been accepted into the computer. Now, just because they end up on my desk does not mean that they must be published. You would not believe some of the strange things that kids come up with these days and a lot of those somehow make it all the way to me. Today was one of those days.
I began with a packet of entries, most of which had already been entered into the system, three of which were left for me to type. They were all from 7th-grade students, not much older than the aforementioned demon-child. The first essay started out normally enough, talking about a current event. Specifically, the oil spill in the gulf. It didn't take much more than a few sentences for me to realize that this poor girl was severely misinformed. After claiming that B.P. crashed and "exploded" the oil tanker on purpose, she lost all credibility in my eyes. She also discussed how B.P. was not actually cleaning up the oil, but would just take it straight out of the ocean as the orders for more oil came in.
She further went on to explain that if Americans did not stop "taking" oil from B.P., we would lose many animal species to extinction like ducks, penguins, seals, "baby belugas," and other such cute sea animals. I must admit that I've never actually been to the gulf coast, but I'm pretty sure that half of the animals she listed off do not live in the gulf. Maybe she was talking about other areas that B.P. drills in. I'm not quite sure why, but she stated something to the effect that since there was oil in the gulf, obviously there was also oil in…the great lakes. "COINCIDENCE? I think not." Let me know if any of you are following her logic there.
Ultimately, her essay was rejected due to the fact that she rambled on way beyond her word limit. I set it aside and wondered what the brain geniuses from this school could come up with next. I was not disappointed.
The next essay got off to a rocky start by asking if I was aware how much money the government was stealing from me to fund space exploration. He explained that they do this by sending random, inexplicable bills for large amounts of money to us. Have any of you received a one of these bills? Because he stated this like everyone had been wondering where these mysterious bills had been coming from. He went on to blame the very act of space exploration for inflation, unemployment, the current state of the government, and natural disasters. You read that correctly. If you thought the moon was evil enough for causing the tides, I'll bet you didn't know the hellish chaos being caused by all the satellites and rockets being thrown out into the void. Specifically, tornadoes and fires. He wrapped up this brilliant thesis discussing how Americans need to turn back to the concept of popular sovereignty to stop the government from wasting any more money on space exploration. This essay was also rejected.
Seriously though, where are kids getting this stuff? I don't know about you but the most pressing current issue on my mind was whether or not it was really OK to keep your hands in the air during a roller coaster. I think these are the type of kids that need to be tied to a chair and forced to watch several hours of Spongebob Squarepants to mellow them out a little bit. After rejecting the second essay, I was seriously doubtful about whether the third essay would make it through the "Bizzaro-meter."
In the end, I let the third one slide even though it implied that the NFL was responsible for animal cruelty.
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