Monday, March 26, 2012

Kid*napping

The other day I was on my way to work when I noticed I was approaching a friend of mine.  As we drew nigh unto collision, he began to act as though he was going to brutally attack me.  To add to the misfortune of this happenstance, another friend of mine (who, mind you, did not know the first) walked out from behind him and began to fall upon me as well.  In panic, I cowered to the ground.  Once they realized that I was afraid of the both of them, they in-cahooted and proceeded to beat me up.

It was in this moment that I realized that I wouldn’t be good at getting kidnapped.  Or avoiding it, rather, because I would be really good at being intimidated and forced to go somewhere.  Have you seen those movies where one of the protagonists is just walking along in a semi busy area and suddenly they’re surrounded by a bunch of sketchy fellas?  Then by the time they realize what’s happening, they’ve already been seized by said sketchy fellas and are subsequently forced into a waiting vehicle to be taken away?  Well that’s what the aforementioned situation reminded me of.  Except I didn't fight or kick or scream.  At all.  I think I might've whimpered a bit.  So hopefully I’ll never be important enough to merit being kidnapped because it would probably be pretty easy.  Just come at me and when I realize you’re ganging up on me, I’ll crumple up into a conveniently-sized package and you can probably heft me fairly easily into a waiting vehicle nearby.  I’ve even lost a few pounds recently.  You’re welcome.


PS:  Kidnapping is kind of an unfortunate word, both because of what it describes and because of its fairly easy misconstrual.  This stems from an unfavorable linguistic morphology.  Many a false accusation and serious incident could be avoided with a change in word formation (asterisks have been placed to denote ambiguity in spelling and, thereby, meaning):
  • “Oh no!  A kid*napping!”  Is someone being stolen or is it simply a vocal hypnophobe?

  • “I’ve been kid*napped!”  It could be easy to see how someone might be crying out for help when really, it's equally likely that there's just a child catching some winks on the proclaimer.

  • “Kid*napping?  I love those!”  It is pretty cute.  Unless it’s a kidnapping.

  • “Hey did you hear about the latest kid*napping?”  Are they referring to a recent abduction? A child that likes to sleep in? Perhaps the least punctual of a group of children shutting his/her eyes?


Reform is in order.

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