11.05.09
Would you let your kid sail around the World??
The other day, a news article caught my attention. Laura Dekker, a thirteen year old Dutch girl, plans to make a solo voyage around the World on her 27-feet yacht, Guppy. The aforementioned trip would take about two years to complete. Her mother, Babs Muller (wassup Babs), who is divorced form Laura’s father, opposes the trip. A Dutch court stopped the planned expedition and has put the girl under supervision. Laura’s father, Dick Dekker, seems OK with the idea. In fact, he had already requested permission from her school for a leave of absence (where the hell is Laura? Ummm, she’s sailing around the globe, she’ll be in Bora Bora by Tuesday). If Laura had been granted permission, she would have been the youngest person to make such trip. Previously, 17 year old British teenager Mike Perham and 17 year old American Zac Sunderland had completed solo World trips.
Now, I must ask, are Laura’s parents (well, her dad) the coolest ever are they are on LSD? If you are willing to let your prebuscent kid go sailing around the World, you either really want to get rid of her and have the house all to yourself in order to host orgies every week, or you’re terrified of little Laura reaching puberty and coming home preggers or hooking up with a wanna be rockstar. Maybe it’s better if little Laura is out there in the ocean sailing instead of Amsterdam. Remember, those Dutch are extremely liberal and maybe dad is an old-fashioned kind of guy. What dangers are there in the ocean?
Well dad, you obviously never saw The Ice Storm, or those National Geographic documentaries about great white sharks. Dad seems to forget that there are pirates close to the shore of Ethiopia more than willing to kidnap little Laura if a generous reward is at hand (unless dad IS planning of getting rid of her). I’ve heard that people that spend ridiculous amounts of time at sea end up crazy and suicidal. Why not just send her to boarding school. What if the poor girl gets bored and wants to call her friends. Does she even have internet access out there?
It’s pretty obvious that these folks are rather wealthy. Who else buys their kids sailboats and teaches them how to sail when they’re kids? Psychotic rich folks, that’s who. When I was thirteen, my dad wouldn’t teach me how to drive. I resented this a bit and wondered why couldn’t my parents be cool. Of course, if I had kids now, I’d be insane to let them drive at thirteen (of course, I knew jackass kids in middle school who claimed to know how to drive since age 10, yeah right). Now, let them sail around the World? Gimme a break! Does having so much money bore people and then they try to find new and odd ways to entertain themselves by challenging nature? Haven’t you noticed how many eccentric millionaire’s end up dead by trying to do something heroically stupid? Does the money make them believe they’re invincible?
