La Crosse Times Year In Review – June
LA CROSSE, WIS — In response to the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases among the 20-29 year old bar crowd, La Crosse County officials have decided to release a swarm of angry parents to help control the bar fly populations.
Over the past week, La Crosse County has seen a significant uptick in COVID-19 cases. Though the upward trend appears to be sudden, it is relatively not surprising that over 95% of the recent cases have been young adults ages 20-29 and have all been linked to downtown bars. From March up until last week, the La Crosse area had been averaging 0-2 cases per day. Now, La Crosse averages over 20 per day with over 200 lab-confirmed cases.
“To be very clear, we do not have the power to shut down these establishments, but in their defense, trying to police a gaggle of drunk 20 year olds is impossible even with the social distancing guidelines,” commented La Crosse County Health Department Director Gorkin Quaff. “This situation has forced us to be creative with our intervention.”
Quaff is referring to a newly created program that releases parents to patrol the streets of downtown La Crosse at night. The decision closely resembles many other natural population control methods like releasing wolves to control the deer population. It is also hoped that if the bar crowd sees middle-aged parents there, they will lose interest and disperse without incident.
The parents who have been recruited to police the bars are of the “empty nester” variety, which means they possess the perfect combination of skills: lots of free time and are extremely worried about their newly independent kids making stupid mistakes.
“I remember what I was like in my 20s. I would be out drinking because I thought I was immortal and the entire world revolved around me,” said Danielle Margarine, an empty nesting parent of a child in their 20s, “Legally 20-year-olds are adults, but we have to remember that we were ALL complete morons in our 20s.”
Apart from disappointed looks, verbal tongue lashings and guilt trips, parents will be armed with an assortment of household weapons to disperse the crowd of 20 year olds including rolled-up newspapers, dirty dish cloths and fly swatters.
“It’s kind of like the popular ‘soldier carrying the donkey’ story,” Quaff added, “the soldier carries the donkey through the minefield not because he likes the donkey, but because the donkey is too goddamn stupid and would likely detonate a landmine and kill everyone. These parents are really our last hope to stop these stupid donkeys from killing people.”
La Crosse Times Staff contributed to this article.