Sass Juice, by Mick Shaffer

After skimming through the FlipCollective micro-bios and surveying a few of the website’s scribes, I have discovered I’m the only member of the group with kids. I’m also the only one with a collection of banded-collar dress shirts, but the reproduction thing makes for a far better topic. And while I’m quite certain that—if pressed—we could uncover some “little Matt Shirley’s” running around anywhere from Kansas City to California, I won’t investigate. After all, I need something to write about.

So I write about children. Because I have children. Plural. Two of them. It’s called making the same mistake twice. Not only did I fail to learn from the past, but I made damn sure history repeated itself. I’m like the famous George Bush misquote, “Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—ya can’t get fooled again.” Nice try, W., but I believe the dismount you were attempting to stick was, “fool me twice—shame on the care-giving wife who takes advantage of your horniness in the form of unprotected sex.” Yeah, slipped another one past the goalie. Score: Shaffer Offspring 2, Hopes & Dreams 0.

Of course, I jest…kind of. I love my kids…as I’m supposed to. I wouldn’t trade them for a thing in the world…turns out they depreciate in value. Just don’t believe for a second that parenting is anything like a Hallmark Original Movie, where a child, in his innocence, teaches the parents valuable life lessons while piano music plays in the background. There is never any piano and there is never any innocence. Kids steal, stall and stink. They’re loud and they lie. Children will commit to doing the exact opposite of what you wish them to do. They vacation in “right.” They maintain their permanent address in “wrong.”

There exist very few counter-striking tools to combat this behavior (or absence of it). However my wife and I have latched on to one very powerful piece of ammunition that we call Sass Juice. I like to think that Sass Juice has brought a calming presence over my wife and me…or, at least, kept us from turning into filicidal maniacs.

I capitalize Sass Juice because it deserves proper noun status. Like George Washington, Appalachian Mountains and Fletch. Sass Juice separates itself from the punishment pack of spankings, time-outs and groundings. Not only because Sass Juice refuses to fend for scraps in the lower-case gutter, but also because Sass Juice is…down-right fun!

In short, Sass Juice is an awful-tasting liquid capable of being sprayed into a child’s mouth immediately following said child’s poor choice of words. Ingredients include: 4 parts vinegar, 1 part water, 1 part container, and 1 part juvenile defiance. Mix it all together and you’ve got yourself a used-up Windex bottle full of acid goodness.

Kindergartener repeats a word from The Hangover? Sass Juice.

Toddler being a little too bossy? Sass Juice.

Pre-schooler repeatedly telling you “No?” Sass Juice.

…Long day at work? Sass Juice.

Wanna…impress the guys from the Lodge? Sass Juice.

I can almost see the 1950’s style commercial now:

Boy: “Aw, shucks. Gosh darn it!”
Announcer: “Want to get rid of your child’s potty mouth?”
Mother: [nodding, baking and sweeping at the same time…in pearls]
Announcer: “Well, try Sass Juice!”
Mother: “Sass Juice?”
Announcer: “That’s right, Sass Juice! One squirt of Sass Juice and your youngster’s vocabulary will clean up instantly!”
Mother: “After one week of Sass Juice, Rory is saying nothing but wholesome and appropriate words like ‘schoolwork,’ ‘Genesis,’ and ‘segregation.’”
Announcer: “Sass Juice. Try it at home, in his bedroom, in his lunchbox. Also try our other disciplinary products, ‘The No-Bruise Bag of Oranges,’ and ‘Electro-belt.’”
Boy: “That’s right, ma’am and sir. Thanks to Sass Juice my life is totally gay! And not ‘gay’ as in an unholy, homosexual, perversion-of-nature sort of way. But ‘gay’ as in happy and gleeful. It’s the 1950’s!”
Announcer: “That’s Sass Juice. Also available in asparagus flavor.”

It would sell itself, really. Of course, punishing the mouth for the words that escape it is nothing new. Heck, Sass Juice’s first cousin is wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap. But unlike its relative, Sass Juice is not cruel and Fascist. Sass Juice is sporty and Free Market. It’s not near as corporal as the other possible punishments. Spanking hurts the kids’ butts, the parents’ hands and your relationship with half of your friends who pass judgment on you for it. All Sass Juice provides is a soured face and the low-cholesterol benefits that come with ingesting direct shots of vinegar.

Plus, incorporating Sass Juice into your punishment regimen is enjoyable. It’s interactive. There’s less ideology involved and more tangible weaponry being used. There’s a reason why department stores hand the soon-to-be husband a scanner gun when registering for wedding gifts. You like to pull the trigger! There’s a tool. You can turn it into a game. Wedding planning for a brief moment becomes bearable. Actually writing down in long-hand the $49.99 Stainless Steel Paper Towel Holder that you “must have” would be like washing a kid’s mouth out with soap. With Sass Juice, discipline is, all of a sudden, an event. It’s like hunting. Only for taste buds.

Most of all, Sass Juice is effective. Time-outs just transfer the crying from your living room over to the “naughty step,” like the stairway is some soundproof chamber or something capable of not only muting the kid’s wails but also somehow making him feel better. Sass Juice makes them think twice about ever calling their brother a “weenie-face” again. I’ve seen it work. Do you have an older kid saying “ass, dick and shit?” Well, Sass Juice will take him down to “butt, penis and poop” in no time. Likewise, if the derogatory third tier is what you seek, Sass Juice can deliver “tushie, wee-wee and #2” as well.

Of course, Sass Juice works its hardest against its namesake: sass. I must admit, my wife and I let the potty talk slide a bit. I mean, have you ever heard a three-year-old say “fart?” It’s hilarious. It’s all we can do to maintain the outside façade of “No, you don’t say that,” when inside we’re exclaiming, “Do it again, son, do it again!” But when it comes to back-talk, my wife and I turn into Doc Holliday with the Sass Juice. Maybe it’s because we don’t like it when we adopt that kind of attitude with each other. Come to think of it, perhaps Wife Juice is the next step. I digress…

My kids are Aidan and Abram. The names have not been changed to protect the guilty. Aidan and Abram, I know, they’re like homonyms. Anyway, Aidan is the 6-year-old beast of a boy who likes sharp things, Family Guy and girls (already). We call 3-year-old Abram our Jewish child because of the Hebrew-ish name, his gigantic ball of curly hair and—to take the stereotype one step further and over the line—he whines a lot.

Both Aidan and Abe have the power within to dial up serious, Christian Bale-type attitude. Abe reacts to not getting his way like there’s been a death in the family. However, since he has little concept of death, a more fitting example would be his reaction to an unrecorded episode of Yo Gabba Gabba. Aidan suffers from bouts of elitism believing that he is, in fact, the one who wears the pants in this family, and every other article of clothing, for that matter.

Each attitude clearly falls under the category of “sass.” Repeated displays of this behavior result in a vinegar bomb to the back of their throats. (Oddly enough, both really like potato chips.) But each time the Sass Juice rectifies the situation. It’s almost like they’re saying, “Ok, ok, I get it. I have taken this being-a-kid shit way too far. I realize that now thanks to the massive amounts of distilled acetic acid you have so graciously sprayed inside me.” Almost like that. Instead it comes out as, “Gross. It tastes like pee!” Pee? More Sass Juice.

Rapidly, the sassiness has decreased to where now they only give attitude to each other. And that’s just plain funny.

Now, I’m sure a “shrink” could just tear me apart with theories on how Sass Juice would inhibit a kid’s psychological development or something. How me correcting Aidan’s behavior at age six with vinegar and water will somehow lead to him getting a tattoo of a zebra scrotum on his neck at age 16. Abe will lead a life of glue-sniffing and Eskimo porn and insist on being called “Lord Pillow” all because Sass Juice was in his life. To that I say, you can blame Sass Juice…or you can blame The Backyardigans.

There is a lot of messed-up behavior out there for kids to absorb. And if either one of my kids starts making-out with stop signs or pulling prom dates from nursing homes, I’ve got a way to solve the problem. Sass Juice! After all, as with having kids, don’t be afraid to make the same mistake twice, right?

Our Sass Juice is cleverly cloaked on the top shelf of the refrigerator (we serve our Sass Juice cold) next to savory liquids such as milk, apple juice, Kool-Aid, Capri-Suns, iced tea, etc. Some upper-case, some lower-case. Either you’ve made it or you haven’t. The legendary status of Sass Juice has taken new form in that the three-year-old actually likes the taste now. He’ll request it at times. He’s weird. But you adapt and you move on. You change out of necessity. (Thumbs were made for the same reason.)

Thus, we can surely concoct some sort of recipe that can serve as Sass Juice II. Some liquid mixture that bitters the tongue all the while kick-starting the gag reflex. A “juice” so vile that the mere mention of it turns Boys Town into Boy Scouts. Basically, something that tastes like pee. It would be a potion powerful enough to deliver a puckered-up expression, a life lesson and, of course, a smile to my face.

To all my FlipCollective pals, may you one day find your children. And may you one day find the antidote.