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Weekly Wednesday Wisdom: Don't Cry Wolf –or– Magnet Free Since 2010

Wisdom for MF: Don't cry wolf

Yesterday we spent a bit of last night at the urgent care. The kid was playing on the fridge when Staci saw him give a look... You know the look.

That I'm doing something I shouldn't look.

So she asked him to come over and he came with mouth closed... The next natural question what's in your mouth followed by, of course, no answer. Then she asked if he ate a magnet... He was playing with these magnets we have on the fridge so that was a good guess... He said yes. She asked him to open his mouth and he did but nothing was there.

When asked if he swallowed the magnet he said no... But when asked if he ate it he said yes.

The deal is it was one of those super strong rare earth magnets... Let me pause my story here for a bit... I have a huge problem with the name of these magnets...

I could go and google it but that would be too much work. I remember looking them up a bit ago and the elements of them are "rare". That's total bullshit. If they were so rare you wouldn't find them in some cheap magnets... You wouldn't find them in magnets at all. Instead we'd be wearing wedding rings that stuck together... But we aren't.

And I'd expect more from scientists... Why are they lying to us? I realize that if it was just some marketing thing it would be a lie.

Ad folk would call them limited edition magnets.

Kind of like they call white chocolate Kit Kats limited edition. They are not... They make millions of them. If I were to buy a case of them and set them aside to sell when I retire I would maybe be able to buy one Kit Kat with what I could sell the moldy old "Limited Edition" Kit Kats for.

I should also mention that I think we're in a candy bar bubble right now... $.89 to 1.09 for a candy bar is ridiculous... That's another reason to not buy a case of Limited Editions you could lose a lot in the short run if the candy bar bubble bursts.

Anyway back to the magnet in the kid's mouth... It can actual be quite dangerous if a kid eats a rare earth magnet because they are stronger than normal ones... Not that eating a normal one is good.

And really they need to eat two magnets or maybe one magnet and a piece of metal that is attracted to a magnet (I believe those metals have a name). They can wreak havoc in the stomach and intestines and actually rip stuff open... But it's quite rare (really rare not "rare earth" fake rare).

So we were freaked and I when I got home I asked MF if he ate a magnet. He said yes.
Did you eat a car? Yes.
Did you eat dog poop? Yes.
Did you eat the refrigerator? Yes.
Did you eat a monkey? Yes.

He was either lying or we had a bigger problem on our hand than we thought.

Better safe than sorry so we took him to the urgent care... Yada yada yada... No magnet.

The kid lied and drove us crazy, got us worried... I realize that if I took a child psychology class (which I actually did but dropped before it started) I would learn he was either just trying to please us by saying yes, playing a game or had no comprehension of why we were asking... Or all of the above.

Point is he cried magnet... Which means the next time we won't believe him whether he ate a magnet, a car, dog poop, a refrigerator or a monkey.

Moral of the Story: There's no need to cry wolf. Wolves are actually quite harmless and pretty damn cool.

Secondary Moral of the Story: If you're going to be in the ad game be a liar – I've known some good liars in my industry... Some have become quite successful. Good liars can also make good politicians, bankers and conmen... Of those three the only respectable career is conman.


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