CAMBRIDGE, MA — As another summer winds to a close, a startling new study revealed that a surprising 92% of all parents' summer vacations are spent adjusting their children's swim goggles.
"This activity overrides everything else," said Dr. Robert Gibbler, lead researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Between the months of June and August, our data shows the average parent stops to adjust a child's goggles at least 1,739,046 times. This simply leaves very little time to do anything else all summer long."
When reached for comment, parents from across the country confirmed the study's findings. "Oh yeah, totally," said Micah Schmidt, father of six. "From the time I get up in the morning until the kids mercifully go to bed at night, the entire day is nothing but an unending blur of goggle adjustments. Whether it's at a swimming pool, the lake, a water park, or just running around through the sprinkler out in the backyard…their goggles need to be fixed every seven seconds. And whenever — ope, hold up, I have to go adjust my son's goggles! I'll be right back."
The study was unable to determine if children have collectively devised a global scheme to periodically misalign their goggles to the point of needing to ask their parents for help, but there is, Dr. Gibbler says, some evidence that would support such a hypothesis.
At publishing time, researchers also confirmed that the remaining 8% of parents' summer vacation was spent lying on the couch and staring blankly at the ceiling after putting their children to bed each night.
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