The Lord of the Jell-O Shots (jell-o shots) 6.7.02

Zippers! A fun new way to drink alcohol by slurping it in the form of fruity gelatin! Land-a-goshin'! What evil is this? We must protect the children!
This is a stylized representation of the stance of Pride Omaha Inc. as espoused in a their recent newsletter (Vol. 23, no. 2) and on KETV. Normally, I would not pay much attention, but once again, Council Bluffs was dragged into the fray because Zippers aren't sold in Omaha, but they are available in Council Bluffs, which apparently shouldn't allow their sale even though most Iowans I know have the mental capacity (a grade school education) and the technology (Tupperware and a fridge) to make Jell-O shots.
KETV could have ignored the non-story, but it's more fun to make Council Bluffs look like Sodom and/or Gomorrah for selling a legal product distributed throughout the Midwest and consumed for decades in all corners of the United States. The rest of the world is too hip to do Jell-O shots.
While I fault no one for wanting to protect their children from the world's evils, it does raise certain issues about how we go about these things.
Realize that Zippers are new, but Jell-O shots are as old as the hills. A kid would still need to show I.D. to buy Zippers and while the containers might look like any other Jell-O snack, thus allowing kids to bring alcohol to school, there are several other products that could be used in the same way.
Bottles, for instance. Any bottle can hold alcohol. You can take the lid off a bottle of Tropicana, put in a shot of vodka and take a screwdriver to school. Any thermos, can of pop or flask for that matter could easily be smuggled into school with hooch in it. When was the last time any school checked for flasks? 1886?
In junior high footbal, some guys used to soak their mouthguards in Jack Daniels. Anyone with initiative can take put alcohol in gelatin, but why? It's geeky. Hemingway never did Jell-O shots. It's time consuming. It takes hours to turn vodka into gelatin. It is kitschy and uncool. Jell-O shots are what tourists do on vacation and that's only if they never had one before.
Let's face it, when it comes to keeping kids from doing the things we don't want them to do, we need to be Zen masters. We can't just think outside the box, we have to be the box the other box comes in.
Kids want to do anything adults don't want them to do because they think anything we don't want them to do is fun. They're right sometimes, too. Any number of things we try to keep kids from doing is fun. Candy, fire, TV, video games, sticking their tongues on frozen light poles, 19th century French lithographs, backyard professional wrestling, beating on their siblings, onanism, riding bikes after dark and the list goes on.
And look at the absolutely terrible, un-fun things we are always trying to make them do just because they are good for them like broccoli, church, school, reading, learning, swimming, speaking Spanish, kissing strange aunts, being upstanding members of society and that list goes on as well.
The psychology is devious. Kids are so sure we are trying to get them to do things using reverse psychology - even when we aren't - that when we are being straight with them, they assume we are lying.
So we have to use reverse-reverse psychology by making it seem like we are trying to get kids to do the things we don't want them to do, pretend we don't care if they do or don't do the things we want them to or, and this is my favorite, pretend we are into the things we don't want them to do so they think they aren't cool.
You don't want kids to do Jell-O shots? Get grandma and all the old folks to sit around doing them at the next family picnic, hand them out to any kids who want them. Make it a party. This tactic works to keep kids from playing badmitten, too.
Shouting "the sky is falling" every time some new fangled product hits the shelves as if this is the one that means the end of western civilization only serves to draw the attention of children to the things we don't want them to do. They want the end of civilization. Read "The Lord of the Flies;" it's all in there.
The same Pride Omaha newsletter said the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported 1,400 college students die each year from alcohol-related incidents. This information usually sends people into a "we must do more" tailspin when the truth is raising the drinking limit, making alcohol taboo for 18 to 20-year-olds and constantly talking about alcohol as though it were an epidemic does more to encourage drinking among minors than anything.
I remember quite well what motivated me and my friends to drink in college when the drinking age was raised from 19 to 21 just before I turned 19. I drank every weekend to spite a law I believe was and still is ridiculous.
There is nothing wrong with drinking at 18 that isn't wrong with drinking in general. If we settle down a bit and gave our kids a few sips of beer or wine at the table as they grew up, they would be much less inclined to get hammered silly as if every illegal opportunity to drink is their last.
Sometimes good humor and common sense will work wonders.
- Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. His column runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He may be contacted at 328-1811, Ext. 279, or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.