Barbarity: The Progeny Of Behaviorists

When I was a bad child I would be taken out back to the gazebo for a spanking . . . but once I got there, my parents only talked about the idea of taking me out back to the gazebo for a spanking.

As I became more responsible, my punishments changed.

I was told to take myself out back to the gazebo for a spanking, as it was known that when I got there I would most certainly think to myself about being taken out back to the gazebo for a spanking, which turned out actually to be a talk about going out back to the gazebo for a spanking.

When I was grown and married, living in my own house, I remarked to the wife that we would need to build a gazebo in the backyard.

“Why?” she asked.
“So that when we have children who are bad we can take them out back to the gazebo for a spanking, but then only talk about going out back to the gazebo for a spanking after we get there.”

She thought this extremely clever and then suggested that we go upstairs to the bedroom to make love.

Once we got there, though, she only talked about the idea of making love.

From then on, when one of us suggested we go upstairs to the bedroom to make love, it was understood that once we got there, we would only discuss the idea of making love.

“Let’s go upstairs to the bedroom to make love,” we would often say when we felt the urge to reestablish our priorities.

This practice eliminated the need for having to punish bad children by building a gazebo in the backyard where talk of spankings would occur.

After all, in the bedroom we talked about how making love would inevitably lead to having bad children whom we would have to punish by taking them out back to the gazebo for a spanking, but, once there, would only talk to them about the idea of going out back to the gazebo for a spanking.

In this way, we had improved upon my parents’ technique of child rearing.

[see note on poem]