CHICAGO, IL — A local couple found themselves facing a challenging dilemma as they were confronted with deciding between giving their child a smartphone or just skipping the middle man and dropping the child off at a local pervert's house.
"We thought it would be perfectly fine to give our son his first smartphone for his eighth birthday," said the child's mother, Jeanie Harbinson. "There really doesn't seem to be any harm in it. I mean, he'll have virtually unfettered access to the seedy underbelly of civilization, but his friend has one and I don't want him to feel left out!"
The boy's father, Burt, however, thought it may be best to just eliminate all the fuss and skip directly to the end result. "Why not just bite the bullet and drop him off at creepy Bo Jiden's house a few blocks from here?" Burt asked, referring to the unsettling local man long suspected of being a pervert by his neighbors. "Giving him a smartphone will just lead him into the path of online groomers anyway. Let's just get it over with."
For his part, Jiden seemed to wholeheartedly agree with the boy's father. "I'm all in favor of them just dropping him off here at my place. Would save me a lot of leg work, honestly."
At publishing time, in addition to giving the boy a smartphone, Burt and Jeanie were said to be considering providing him with cigarettes, hard alcohol, and a loaded firearm to put the child in as much danger as possible.
Citing concerns about stiff competition from Amazon and an impossible-to-please Gen Z, Santa has announced he's hanging up the hat for good.
