Commentary

Watch and pray

THESE DAYS WHEN you see the ads on television for all of these drugs that are supposed to cure you from certain ailments but give you so much more pain in return, you have to wonder what is going on.

I mean, what is the point of taking a drug to cure me of insomnia but makes me dizzy, nauseous, and puts me at risk of becoming addicted to it? Some of the side effects of some of these drugs are worse than the ailment they are supposed to cure.

Anyhow, inside of all that insanity, there is some hope. I recently saw an ad for a pregnancy test that can tell a woman if she is pregnant five days before she misses her first period.

This is indeed a good thing for many reasons, but what I like about it is that such a test opens the door for even more advanced technology that could help reduce the rates of teenage pregnancy worldwide.

MINUTEST CHEMICAL CHANGE

Here is my theory. If the guys that are tinkering with this pregnancy test thing could come up with a wristwatch that can detect the minutest chemical change that occurs the instant the sperm enters the egg, it would open the door for what I am proposing.

The way the watch would work is that it would be outfitted with receptors on the underside that are in contact with the skin and those receptors would be able to detect those chemical changes. The instant pregnancy is detected the watch would go off in one of those soft-toned computer-generated voices, you know like the computer in I-Robot, that says, "You have been knocked up."

Now, once a girl reaches the age of puberty she would be required to wear one. In fact, all females should wear one since, you know, pregnancy has a way of sneaking up on a lot of women; and men too.

EMBARRASSING

The thing about this watch which would deter pregnancy is that it is likely to embarrass the person wearing it. Imagine a prim and proper unmarried teacher standing before her class with her holier-than-thou self when her watch goes off. "You have been knocked up." Can you imagine the drama?

It would also help parents monitor their daughters a lot better; those who actually monitor their daughters, that is.

You know how many girls would make sure they use protection and that their boyfriends whether they're taxi or bus drivers or not, would be using condoms, perhaps even two at a time.

And the minute a parent sees that her child is not wearing her watch they would know that something is amiss. So, you see, it works on two levels.

To a certain degree such a watch could also help limit infidelity. A man who isn't getting any is going to know that if his girl gets 'knocked up' within a certain time frame and he knows he never got any during that time, he would automatically know that someone else had gone knocking.

For such instances the creators could put in a default function so that if the watch is unable to read any chemical reactions any at all then it would utter a very timely "You are dead."

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