It used to be fun to (jokingly) blame Obama for everything. Crappy weather? Thanks Obama. Traffic jam? Clearly his fault. But now we have #45, and it’s no longer as much fun. Because the dicktator really does f#$% up a lot of things. My sad lib bias is obvious from that portion of my blog, and much of it surely sounds like sore loser crying about Hillary, but now it’s personal. When Trump physically hurts my kid, I am entitled to being pissed off.
Last weekend, Teddy and I were six minutes into our six mile run, cruising crawling down the street (I’m out of shape, unless the shape is round), when the front tire popped off. Inertia or exertia (body in motion tending to stay in motion) kept Teddy moving forward, while friction stopped the wheelless front of the stroller from doing the same, when gravity flipped the strapped in kid onto his face under the stroller in the middle of the street. My lightning quick reflexes allowed me to smash the sh!t out of my shin and knee on the back of the stroller, but at least I didn’t land on top of it and my son.
In the road were my cell phone, house keys, water bottle (the contents in the open pockets of the stroller), and an upside down yellow BOB with a screaming two year old underneath it. I’m lucky the loquacious Teddy has not yet learned my favorite four letter words, or he’d have been screaming WTF DAD!!! I flipped the stroller back upright (the straps at least kept Teddy in the seat, even if the seat was on top of him, so I guess that’s good?), unhooked him, and picked him out of the deathtrap to try to console the crying boy.
An older lady heard the commotion and came over to help, trying to distract Teddy with her cute little dog. Unfortunately for her and Duke, neither was much comfort to relieve the road rash and growing lump on Teddy’s forehead. Blue Devils be damned, but it was a nice gesture nonetheless.
Another lady saw us standing there on the side of the road and pulled over to offer assistance, offering the four wheels of her minivan instead of a four-legged distraction. It beat the two wheels of BOB, even if it might have been fun to wheelie home with Teddy. (I had abandoned hope of completing the remaining 5.25 miles of the run at this point). I took her up on the offer of home delivering the broken BOB stroller, but Teddy and I proceeded to the nearby playground so that I could offer him something fun before heading home or to the emergency room. (Sai was out running her own errands, so she was not around to freak out over the incident).
By now you’re probably wondering two things. First, is Teddy okay? (You better be wondering that, or else you’re a sociopath). The good news is yes, he took his lumps and soldiered on. My boy is tough. Though he was nervous riding his bike yesterday, whereas he’s normally fearless, so he might be suffering some PTSD. At least he’s young and shouldn’t hold the scary memories for long. He’ll likely need therapy when he gets older, but that’s probably because of his parents more so than this incident. Second, how the hell am I blaming Trump for this? Thanks for asking.
A few months ago, the Amazon Washington Post published some “fake news” entitled “After hundreds of crashes, this Britax jogging stroller faced recall. Then Trump appointees stepped in.” Britax Child Safety is the maker of BOB’s strollers. The previously bipartisan Consumer Product Safety Commission, ostensibly intended to protect consumers, has recently become a partisan program wherein wimpy Democrats try to stymie business with ugly recalls, while ‘Merican Republicans let companies like Britax compromise by launching YouTube videos that no one watches or hears about, and admitting no fault. They insist that the BOB is not defective.
Teddy and I beg to differ. The three-wheeled stroller is not effective as a two-wheeler. It’s not like removing the training wheels and stepping up to the big leagues. I’ve logged hundreds of miles with Teddy in the passenger seat. I may not be good at much, but putting one foot in front of the other and keeping the stroller in front of me seemed to fall well enough within my wheelhouse. Flipping my favorite child onto his head was a defective run caused by the mechanical failure of the stroller, not by my own actions.
The Britax argument is that the stroller cannot be defective because it passed some factory standards of safety. Never mind the fact that there are hundreds of incidents (plus this one more) in the field where the child and his pushy parent have been documented to be less than safe using their product. The CPSC under Obama’s appointee’s leadership wanted to get the message out that something needed to be done to prevent further injuries. Trump’s appointee (Ann Marie Buerkle) took the Lorax* approach to Britax… “business is business! And business must grow” regardless of lumpies or bumpies on Teddy’s head you know. [*To be clear, it’s the Onceler’s philosophy, from the Lorax story]. The newer versions of the BOB do not have the same “quick release” or “surprise release” front wheels any more…
On the one hand you have to assume that Bezos Post is making up this whole thing just to spite our favorite president, because apparently that’s what they do. But doesn’t Amazon sell a lot of BOBs? I’ll let the WaPo article speak for itself like the Lorax speaks for the trees, and unless someone cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
But before I disappear to wait for that distant day when people care again and businesses are concerned about more than just biggering their money, I propose a revolutionary protest against Britax. Inspired by our forefathers and our patriotic Tea Party people, I plan to dump my broken stroller into Boston Harbor (I assume Britax is short for British Tax). And while BOB now offers a little-known discount to the half million owners of wheel-dropping strollers to buy new ones, I think I’ll opt for another brand instead.
Britax / BOB / Buerkle – GFY.
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 