MINIPROMPT: {Crime} Time — What Harmless Act Do You Wish Was a {Crime}?

Look, I don’t make all the rules. And neither do you. But maybe we can let you make ONE rule. Right? That seems fair. So, in honor of our CRIME SCENE writing prompt (all the way back in March), what is a totally harmless act that you personally wish was a crime, and why?

Jillian Conochan

If you already have amazing, juicy lips and you get injections, I am holding you in criminal contempt. Your crime? Escalating the nuclear lips race and I won’t stand for it. That’s a one year minimum sentence in Juvederm Jail 💋

Dennis William

Strangers talking to me.

Kelaine Conochan

I wish it was illegal to tell anyone, “You can’t wear white after Labor Day.” First of all, why do you even care what I’m wearing on September 27th, Mrs. Jingleheimer-Schmidt? Second of all, who wrote these rules—some high society elitist snobs with the same moral authority as The Plastics?

Third of all, time is a construct, and so is Labor Day, and so are dumb, antiquated rules around what not to wear. Okay? We wear whatever we want now. Unflattering, wide-leg jeans? Yes. Flamingo pink sweaters with disproportionately long sleeves? Of course.

Cargo pants? BACK IN STYLE, FRIENDZ.

So, fashion police better not come at me about wearing white or the REAL police will come back at you.

Erin Vail

If I am on a hike on a trail in nature, and someone is walking with a portable speaker and/or music playing on their phone without headphones, I should have the right to perform a citizen’s arrest. I don’t want to be forced to listen to your shitty music unwillingly. It’s called common courtesy. Also, headphones exist.

Jay Heltzer

Dear Society,

I regret to inform you that accountability rests upon your shoulders if your garage parking ticket is not readable, as well as if your alleged “validation” is in fact, valid.

Perhaps you inserted it incorrectly into the automated gate ticket scanner, either backwards, upside down, or both? Perhaps it rested in your pocket next to your Uranium America Express card? Perhaps you had a moment of distracted confusion and you tried to insert a coupon for a frozen yogurt chain that went bankrupt in 2013 instead of your parking ticket?

Upon failure to exit the garage after your third attempt, a cadre of muscular parking pall bearers will surround your car and carry you away so the rest of the responsible parking citizens may exit in a timely manner.

Mikael Johnson

A personal crime for me is when someone dismisses the Super Bowl, World Series, or some major athletic event as watching the “Sport Balls” or “Sporty Sports.”

It’s so reductive and passive. Don’t like sports. Got it.

I don’t refer to avid readers as those into the “Pagey-Words” or “Bookie-Books,” or foodies being all excited about DC’s overpriced “Nom-Nom Week.”

Recently, someone asked if I wanted to come over and watch The Bachelor finale… AKA “Gameshow: Barbie.”

I simply said,

“No. I hate it. Look, whoever he picks, he picked in the first 15 minutes of the very first show. The rest of the time, he’s been trying to impress his acting coach. Seriously, are we gonna sleep together or not? I can’t waste another evening pretending I like this show. Sorry… I’m not trying to be abrupt. Just trying to be clear about my expectations and ‘boundary-oriented’ per my Shrinky-Shrinks.”

Josh Bard

I don’t think smoking weed should be a crime, and as it is increasingly decriminalized, state by state, the country should retroactively be taking people out of jail for selling or holding or smoking weed. And with all those newly empty cells, I think we should begin to criminalize weed smokers who can’t talk about anything besides smoking weed or how much they smoke. It’s a disgusting habit and a gateway conversation that could lead to increasingly worse conversations like talking about how much Molly they take or how much fun they had that one night they did cocaine in Miami but can never do it again.

Eric Mochnacz

Hey buddy.

I see you there. With two weeks worth of groceries in your cart. And you’ve opted to use the self checkout lane. With no clue how to scan any of your produce. When all I need to get is this Sara Lee Cherry Crumble pie because I’m an adult and can eat pie (and my feelings) whenever I want…

OFFICERS, ARREST THIS CRIMINAL!

Michael Maiello

You think you know it all and you’re going to end a boisterous debate, online or off, with your special knowledge. You are going to say one of two things, maybe both:

1. The United States isn’t a democracy; it’s a democratic republic.
2. Free speech only applies to the government, not to private companies.

Officer, take our interlocutor back to high school civics class where they can find happiness in the technicalities of what is while we continue to discuss what should be.

Katie Novotny

You should always be walking on the right-hand side of the sidewalk. Always. No exceptions. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. This is how we as a society should maintain some kind of order. I will be a sidewalk dictator and I will be 110 percent okay with it. And if there are two of you, taking up the entire width of the sidewalk and approaching me, a Single, and don’t pass by me single-file, I will have you jailed.

Natalie Brandt

Hey you. Genius in the left-turn lane. Yes, I know you can’t see me because you’re on your phone. Gross, now you’re picking your nose. Don’t you appreciate the power you have over all of us running late? Did you forget this turn signal only lasts 15 seconds? You can’t bear to just look up for a few moments to watch a light so you can bravely accelerate with all due verve the moment that little green arrow appears? No? Simply gotta use these 41 seconds to check how many likes that post about your ironically-named labradoodle got? Really don’t hear us back here honking at you to go?  Oh, wait, you did. Just in time to fly through the intersection as the green arrow turned to a smug red, leaving all of us to die here in the turn lane.

We’re coming for you. You and your labradoodle.

Sarah Razner

After spending time watching some television shows from the early aughts, I bring to this court a proposal to criminalize one of the most heinous things in this entire world: turn-of-the century denim.

What devil invented low-rise jeans? For demented and sadistic they must be. Very few people can pull off the jeans, while the rest of us who try end up looking like muffins spilling over our container or a plumber hunched over the toilet,  or—gasp!—both.

The next person who suggests they should be seen on a runway or mannequin again should be immediately arrested and given a sentence akin to that or torturing someone. Or, okay, fine—a few steps below that. The same for wide-legged pants. No one needs a non-aerodynamic, trip hazard on their legs unless they are smuggling logs.

Yes, they are fashion crimes, but a crime is still a crime.