A subscriber to the Georgetown Forum, a Washington DC website, is offering “Toddler Conversion” kits. The editor of this blog is not entirely sure how these work, but he is nonetheless hailing this invention as one of the greatest breakthroughs in the last two hundred years. The idea has to be this: in minutes you can convert your mewling, puking toddler, who keeps you awake at night, into a twenty-five year old graduate of Harvard (or, preferably, Oxford. I am biased). Hopefully, this graduate, who can be male or female, will be smart, good-looking, personable, polite and be totally convinced that you are the most interesting person on Earth.

Banished will be school runs, Parent-Teacher Association meetings and astronomic school bills. Gone will be the pickiness over food, the dismal period of adolescence, the fights and the quarrels. No worries about college debt or the rumors about drugs and booze at university. Sprung, as it were from the womb, is a pleasant, adult companion who can knowledgeably discuss cosmology and philosophy and gently ask about how you feel about life and what the doctor told you last week about your blood pressure.

Epicurus probably wondered why it took 18 to 20 years to produce an adult, sentient human being who could conduct an intelligent conversation. He would be thrilled that at last we have a “Toddler conversion kit” that allows women time to get their hair cut and married couples with children to have a life.