Don't Pee in Our Pool and We Won't Swim in Your Toilet:

A New Approach to Fighting Terrorism

When I was growing up there was a deep-rooted and very powerful urban myth that held in check the bladder of every single kid in every single swimming pool in America. Perhaps what I am about to say isn’t news to any of you, perhaps you all grew up under the same reign of terror and intimidation, perhaps you grew up believing that there was a chemical in the water that would react and release a highly visible dye if you peed in the pool.

I have been doing a lot of intensive research into the pool dye mystery and I was assured by scientists at Dow Chemical that no such technology exists to deter preadolescents from urinating while they swim. A spokesman for Union Carbide confessed that they developed a solution that would kill bathers who relieved themselves in the pool but their engineers had no success with developing a harmless dye that merely embarrasses the weak-bladdered swimmer.

I find it positively astounding that although a reactive dye does not exist there was not a single reported incident of pool peeing from 1964 until 1998 when young swimmers were able to debunk this myth on their own through sources available on the internet. When I think back on all of the time I wasted, all of the fun that I missed as a kid getting out of the pool just to use the restroom, I can only shake my head in respect for whoever created the myth of the pool pee dye.

What I propose is that the CIA begin development on a new urban myth that could work to thwart terrorism. About 99.999% of intimidation is just what people think will happen if they follow a certain course of action. Neither I nor any of my friends had actually witnessed the pool pee dye but we cowered at the thought of such a powerful deterrent. From what I get from the news, most terrorists don’t have as much on the ball as even a bunch of unruly kids at the pool. How sharp could you be if someone can talk you into blowing yourself up with a car full of explosives for the sake of religion? I couldn’t even be talked into waking up at nine in the morning to go to church because of religion.

The key to creating a powerful urban myth is to find the weak spot in the subjects you are trying to coerce or intimidate. The pool dye myth preyed on the fear little kids have of being embarrassed in front of their friends. I feel that the major mistake we have made in our war against terrorism has been our total failure in targeting the weaknesses of the terrorists. We have heard politicians saying that we are going to kill the terrorists. If we have learned one thing from these maniacs it is that they don’t care about dying because for them living means living in a culture where women walk around covered head to toe with bed linen.

If I know anything about Muslims it is that they are touchy fuckers on the subject of their women. What if suicide bombers believed an urban myth that if they attacked us all of their female family members would be forced to star in the next Girls Gone Wild video? I think that if we put some legs on that rumor we could stop screening people at airports altogether. If terrorists fall for this myth hook, line, and sinker like my friends and I did for the swimming pool scare then we won’t have much to worry about. If terrorists thought that their women folk would end up in midget porn videos if they carry out attacks, we would live in a safer world. “Thank you for flying TWA, Mister Bin Laden. Can I get you a magazine, a pillow, an AK47, or a magazine for your AK47? How are your wives and daughters doing, Mister Bin Laden?”