Prepare to be blown away. I mean, clear your head and prepare to put your brain into “high brain synapse activity” mode. Ponder the following question: do flies hover? Actually, that question isn’t so mind-boggling, because they don’t (at least in the research I have conducted in my kitchen). But, CAN they? Let that percolate for a while.

Questions such as these are always popping into my head. I suppose you could probably call it “inspiration”, but the difference between me and a scientist is I don’t care enough to find out. They just tend to be a nuisance to me, or more particularly my wife. I try to bottle them up for her sake, but in some cases I have no choice but to let the questions pop out and reveal their brilliance. A hypothetical example: we’ll be driving down the road and I’ll think, “hmmmm…I’m going 50 miles and hour….what if I threw a baseball backwards at 50 miles per hour?” I do my best to forget about it and not bother my wife, but I’ll think “what WOULD happen?” So, as usually happens, I’ll cave in and ask her.

I’ll give her credit, the methodology she uses to scientifically dissect the question at hand is remarkably consistent. First, she breaks the query down to it’s base proposition and reveals the core concept at hand with the following postulate: “I don’t care.” So, thinking I must have obviously posed the question wrong as anyone in their right mind would be dying to know the answer, I’ll rephrase the question: “no, what if it was a watermelon…I wonder if a watermelon would break apart in the air at 50 miles per hour….ooooh, if so, would the seeds be going fast enough to crack a windshield?” At this point she usually turns her music up. (By the way, for those of you dying to know the answer, based on some quick internet research I discovered the ball will drop straight down….God bless nerds and their experiments).

Speaking of questions and music, why would anyone let their children listen to Kidz Bop? I know why they would since it’s a cute premise: kids singing current pop hits for kids. But after listening to a sampling of the music, I had to ask myself WHY? You may be asking yourself why I would be listening to Kidz Bop music. Well, the answer is mind your own business.

I found the songs like “Crazy” and “Bad Day” pleasant enough. Then, I got to the Kidz’ rendition of “1,2 Step”, a song I’ve never heard. There are few things more unsettling than listening to adults and children sing lyrics such as the following (for the benefit of kids of course): “Goodies make the boys jump on it”, “I shake it like jello”, “work my body so melodic”, and “we about to get it on”. The last one I have a particular problem with; it should be we “are” about to get it on. What kind of grammar are we teaching our children?!

But seriously, it’s songs like this that that are slowly whittling down the surprise I feel when I hear about kids getting pregnant younger and younger. (Doctor: “well, the ultrasound indicates your baby is healthy…healthy and surprisingly pregnant.” Mother: “How is that possible?” Doctor: “you haven’t been in proximity to any Kidz Bop music recently have you?”) Times sure have changed since I was young and children’s songs concerned innocent subjects like the sounds of farm animals, children falling from tree tops, and the collapse of iconic bridges.

I guess this just means I, as a responsible father, will have to pull up my parenting boot straps and persevere in protecting my children from the filth that our culture constantly throws at them. Those bootstraps will indeed be pulled…just as soon as my kids and I are through listening to this Kidz Bop CD.