Teenagers of the world, I have held my unpierced tongue long enough. Your desire to entertain yourselves via common household products, your phone’s camera feature, your esophagus and the word “challenge” has got to stop.
With two teens of my own, I’ve remained silent until now. I’ve lived through my girls’ desires to perforate body parts that, in my opinion, should be nowhere near needles: I begrudgingly approved the ear helix but held firm on the belly button and lower lip.
I said nothing around 2011 when my first-born daughter, then 14, was “planking” with her friends. Mimicking a wooden board and having a friend snap the obligatory photo for social media upload looked stupid, I thought, but what was the harm? As long as the planker — or was it plankee? — performed the stunt in a safe location, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, “Kids, what will they think of next?”
Plenty, that’s what. And what they are thinking about is enough to push the needle on the idiot meter permanently into the red zone.
I can no longer toss a Tide Pod into my washing machine without first holding it and wondering what possesses someone to insert a puff of highly-concentrated detergent into one’s mouth and bite down. While filming, no less. I keep wondering if, the next time I venture to my drug store to pick up laundry soap, I’m going to find it behind a locked glass case, next to the razor blades, Benadryl and other items that could cause harm if not used correctly. Blame the Tide Pod challenge for my worries.
Now condoms may occupy that same, protected space. Thank teenagers who are apparently bored by 999 channels of entertainment on their televisions, not to mention thousands of apps on their ever-present phones.
When I first read about the condom challenge, I assumed it was a joke, for it appeared in my newsfeed on April Fools’ Day. Also, I’d been tricked, embarrassingly so, by the “Google Self Driving Bike” video just a week earlier. So, my guard was up when it came to spotting potential fake news.
But stories, and accompanying videos of teens unwrapping condoms, and snorting them through their nasal passages with the intent of reproducing them via their mouths are in fact true, as reported by reputable publications including Newsweek and Forbes magazines. Like most teen fads, the articles were accompanied by quotes from medical and rescue professionals who, due to years of education and on-the-job training, were duly qualified to say, “This is stupid. And dangerous.”
Kids, medical risks aside, do you realize you’ve just foisted another layer of discomfort on your parents when it comes time to having the sex talk? My dad stammered and stuttered his way through an explanation of a condom’s proper use when I was 14. And that speech didn’t include the addendum, “Oh, and one more thing. Don’t shove it up your nose and inhale deeply.”
Ever the active, concerned parent, I asked both my kids if they were aware of this now-confirmed craze. Granted, it wasn’t the most appropriate Easter dinner topic; but one daughter’s in college now, and I rarely see them together. So, imagine my shock when both said they had not only heard of it, but one had TRIED it.
“It’s where you fill a condom with water and drop it on somebody’s head, right?” my older one asked. “We tried it in the dorm.”
“No, it’s where you snort it up your nose,” I corrected her.
“Ewww, haven’t heard of that one.”
That’s a relief. Resume eating your hard-boiled eggs, girls.
Teens, I realize your social lives, and popularity sadly, revolve around “likes,” “follows” and YouTube views. But please, find something that doesn’t first involved a trip to a CVS. Revert to piercings if you must. Go visit a licensed cosmetologist and have her pierce your phone to your cheek. Walk around the school with your newly pierced phone face and tell everyone you’ve discovered the secret to not losing your phone. Prove it by removing the phone and then reattaching it your cheek. Your friends will ooh and aah.
And manufacturers of laundry soap and condoms will rejoice.
