Baby Blackjack

My friend Erin thought for years that she got carsick. She thought this for years because her father always gave her Gravol before long car rides. Only when she had kids of her own did she realize the real reason why he was slipping her a little dimenhydrinate: to knock her out. (You've got to start early with this ruse. My own father once tried it, but I was old enough to know that I'd never been carsick in the past, so I politely declined his offer as unnecessary. Nice try, old man.) She's also mentioned that when she was a baby, he used to rub whiskey on her gums to help her get to sleep.

This is old-school parenting. Not just old-school, but hard-boiled; in Mickey Spillane novels, this is known as slipping someone a mickey. Let's not pussyfoot around what's going on: Someone is being surreptitiously drugged into unconsciousness, and in this case, that someone is a child.

Here's an idea for all those dads out there who like to play at being a private eye. Imagine a little leather bag filled with lead shot, with a handle at one end. It comes in your choice of brightly coloured designs. When your infant or toddler won't fall asleep, just bean him across the back of the head with it, and he's out like a light. This is the Baby Blackjack.