With 2009 comes chance, hope, promises of better lives, and opportunities to improve ourselves in new ways.  With that being said, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your ability to be mean to children, I’ve compiled a list of the six best ways to annoy a child.  Every one of these tactics has been personally tested by yours truly, and all have worked with fantastic results.  I promise you that utilizing these concepts will wield a tornado of prepubescent unhappiness that can only make a new year better and brighter.

It is important to note that “unhappiness” is a fairly loose and ambiguous term.  You may want to annoy a child in a specific way.  This is why I have incorporated pictures representing the reactions that the child will give you for each specific thing.  Plan accordingly.

1.  The Wii gloater bubble.
This is a fairly new method I’ve developed.  My seven year old nephew recently got a Wii for Christmas, so naturally I have to compete with him and make sure he doesn’t win.  Ever.  This tactic involves laughing at all of their mistakes at an obnoxiously loud volume.  It also helps if you stick your face right in front of theirs while you do it, saying things like, “Oh yeah!”

*Note: Wii can be interchanged with anything that can be construed as fun.  For example:  my nephew and I played Chutes and Ladders, and as soon as he hit that big ass chute going all the way down to the beginning, I started laughing maniacally in his face.  The results were exactly the same for both games.

*Note #2:  I manipulated the spinning wheel to have him land on the long chute.  Twice.

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2.  The Listerine Lick
The Listerine Lick requires two things:  A Listerine Power Pak strip that dissolves in your mouth instantly, and a child who has no idea what A Listerine Power Pak strip is.  It’s self-explanatory…just have them open their mouths and put the strip in.  The result will be priceless, so make sure you have a camera handy.  I’ve tested this on my nephew several times, and what I find that works best are the Listerine Strips, or Wasabi.  Both work extremely well.

*Note:  You can do this more than once if you offer the child money.  The money deal only worked once for me though because I didn’t actually pay up like I promised, and he caught on.

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3.  The Case of the Missing Brownie
I’ll be honest, discovering “The Brownie incident” was a complete accident.  I was out to dinner with my nephew, and he ordered a brownie for dessert.  He ate most of it and had one small piece left so I took it and ate it right in front of him.  What happened after that was a mixture of eyes welling and a pursed together mouth, as if it were from the faces of gay couples who had their marriage licenses taken away.  I don’t know a lot about child psychology, but I do know that taking the last of anything good will piss a child off.

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4.  The Trip
On Christmas Eve I went into a grocery store.  I got into the store, and there was this horrible little kid running through the aisles screaming. I know he was excited about Christmas, but he was being incredibly obnoxious. He was being as loud and repulsive as Yoko Ono would be singing in a g-string. Screaming. Crying. Being an annoying little idiot while his parents stood there picking up vegetables, not doing a thing to calm their runt down.
I went into the cheese aisle and the kid ran past me. I nonchalantly put my foot out and he fell flat on his face.  I tripped a 4 year old kid on Christmas Eve, and I would do it again.

*It should be noted that I do not advocate for child abuse in any way, nor do I want to see any child suffer in a …nevermind

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5.  The Dirt Removal
If a child ever knocks over a plant and spills dirt, here is a cute little thing you can do.  Have him clean the mess up with you, and at some point grab a little bit of dirt and pretend to eat it, but make the kid think you’ve actually eaten it.  Then say, “Now you try.”  They will actually grab a clump of dirt and put it in their mouth and eat it.  It’s awesome.  It’s exactly the same expression you’d expect a child to have if he thought that for the longest time dirt was inedible, briefly thought it was edible, and then quickly relearned it wasn’t edible.

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6.  Scare Tactics
While most of my experiments usually involve my naïve, yet forgiving nephew, if I can find a child to annoy elsewhere, I usually take advantage of those opportunities.  They’re like coupons.

I was at my friend’s house, and he babysat this 12 year old kid, Brandon.  All of us were sitting in the living room, when I decided for no particular reason to call their land line.  I call and ask for Brandon, meanwhile we were all sitting together.  Everyone could hear me talk into the phone, and Brandon was standing a few feet away from me while I was doing this.  How this plan worked is beyond me…
When Brandon answered the phone, I changed my voice to a stalkerish serial killer hybrid sound.  In other words, just like Seth MacFarlane.  I then begin to scare the hell out of him.

It was at this point where Brandon looked out of the window and “saw” someone looking at him.  I then told him he had to walk home in the dark.  He was practically in tears…and for some strange reason I loved myself more that day.

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Remember, 2009 brings hope and promise to everyone, which of course means everyone except children.

Happy New Year

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