We have become a culture dependent on having background music throughout every moment of our lives. On most Whitman bus rides we don’t talk to each other, we shut each other out with earbuds and stare at the sky. Whitties run by Bennington lake listening to their iPods instead of just listening to the lake. We are creating a world for ourselves without natural sounds. That’s fine. That’s our choice.
There is a new invention in production right now, however, that will destroy the one last time and place where everyone, no matter where they live, gets to just curl up and listen to nature at work: in the womb.
It’s called the Blaby, and it straps around the belly of a pregnant woman. The woman uploads her music onto a small hard drive on a broad fabric strap and then it vibrates her amniotic fluid to the song of her choice, creating a surround-sound system for her very startled child. It also offers her the option to play a recording of her voice, or anyone’s, at the child.
It’s not the thought of what people will play for their kids that terrifies us, it’s the notion that people will use the Blaby in general. The reasons why the Blaby is a terrible and essential piece to the end of humanity are clear. Just in case you are one of the many fools who disagrees, here are just a few:
1) It’s already loud up in there.
For most of your kid’s waking life your heart has been bigger than it’s face and has been pumping an insane amount of blood all around and INTO it. If you don’t think the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are loud already, go sleep in the Hoover Dam. Now imagine that while you try to sleep some omnipotent jackass decides it would be a good idea to blast Bon Jovi at you so that it vibrates literally everything you touch.
2 ) She can already hear you talking! Hearing your voice louder is just terrifying!
The idea that you need an mp3 of your voice to talk to your baby is ridiculous. Your voice box is your child’s upstairs neighbor. You don’t need to use the Blaby to oscillate your whole uterus to get your message across. Just imagine how terrified your child will be when the voice she has been hearing softly from a distance her whole life suddenly appears high-def like it’s RIGHT BEHIND HER. Don’t give her PTSD before she’s born.
3) Let’s see how YOU like it.
When was the last time you were blind, underwater, upsidedown and squeezed in on all sides? Before you strap on a Blaby, let’s see if you can handle it. Get a giant balloon, the size that are tethered to the roofs of auto dealers, get in it with a breathing tube and a blindfold, fill it with warm water and then put stereos on either side of it and play a recording of your mom so that it reverberates the skin of the balloon itself like an air-tight jacuzzi. Would this be more comforting than just hearing your mother speak to you from the outside? No.
Silence is golden. Let’s allow our future generations to have just nine months of peace and quiet because with our affinity for incessant noise, that’s the last they’ll ever get.
