The Up Machine, Which Doesn't Like Children

We have an amazing, although controversial, appliance in our house called the Up Machine. Every morning, sometimes between 7:30 and 7:50, the Up Machine descends on Daniel's room, and with its very human arms, it lifts the sleeping lad out of his bed of sweet slumber, and proceeds to remove his clothes, exposing him briefly but bitterly to the cold of New England mornings, and mechanically force on him clothing that he dislikes, which would be any clothing except sweat pants and creepy bad-guy shirts. To make matters worse, the Up Machine sings as it maneuvers the hapless Kindergartner, as if to deny the lad of any flickers of sleep that might remain in his consciousness. This morning's song was Harry Belafonte's Day-O, which seemed to be greeting the arrival of the new day with a glee which made the entire ordeal all the more oppressive.

But Daniel is not easily deceived, and, as he was carried down the stairs by the ambulatory Up Machine, he pronounced an insightful condemnation of the hated gizmo:

"Daddies don't like their children."

(April 3, 2012)