It’s been a big month for baseball-based gender reveals

It’s been a big month for baseball-based gender reveals. The eternal need to one-up each other on how a baby’s gender is announced has given us two absolute gems. Both of which are utter failures.

In June we learned why hitting a fragile orb full of colored powder is a danger if it doesn’t break.

Which, by the way, can we talk about how he calmly said “That didn’t go well” instead of frantically running to his pregnant significant other’s aide? That’s seriously the best you’ve got in that situation after beaning her in the face?

And on Monday we found out the risk of waiting for the perfect pitch.

There are times you take a walk, and this is not one of them. Also homeboy is carrying a pink baseball bat. Did nobody think this would be a spoiler alert for what was coming?

In any event, the fragile orb is an amazing way to reveal a secret or answer a question, but it’s been woefully underutilized on baby gender. The reason is simple: Almost nobody cares what gender a child is except for the parents-to-be and close family. Anyone else who pretends they care is lying to you.

A marriage proposal, on the other hand, is something everyone has a stake in — especially when it happens in public. It’s for this reason I have a simple proposal:

We’ve gone over the issue of public sports proposals in the past (spoiler: don’t do them). However, there is going to be a fraction of the public who insist on taking a moment during a sporting event or gathering to put it all on the line for one big question.

It’s at this moment that everyone in attendance has a vested interest. They are invited into a private moment and as such have a right to enjoy your happiness or soul-crushing despair, depending on the answer. The problem is that up to this point we’ve been entirely reliant on stadium PAs or announcers to tell us what happened, until now.

We will pass a federal law requiring everyone who is in a relationship to purchase two fragile orbs filled with green and red smoke, which they have to carry with them at all times. The orbs will break very easily, so be sure to purchase a patented “Orb cover,” which Dator Inc. will sell for just $29.99.

If someone proposes to you in public, you are mandated by law to produce an orb, smash it, and tell the world whether you said “yes” or “no.” Here’s why it’s genius: Now every single citizen is part of your stupid, ill-advised proposal. When a proposal happens at a sporting event we can have people chanting “RED” or “GREEN” based purely on their initial judgement.

We’re turning the marriage process into a sport. This is a real-life Tinder with a swipe-right option, but it’s a fragile orb full of smoke instead of a stranger’s photo you’re looking at while sitting on the toilet.

The gender reveal industry is booming, while more and more people look to garner attention for a question to which nobody cares about the answer. This is the future. Furthermore, in the past all the power in the public proposal dynamic has been on the proposer, not the proposee. They get to decide to propose in public, THEY get to determine whether they’ll put their loved one through public torture. We remove the stigma of the answer by the sociall accepted norm of smashing an orb, and put the power back in the proposee’s hands — where it belongs.

“I ... I think he’s going to propose.”

“ORB THE S*** OUT OF HIM CHRISTINE! RIGHT IN HIS FU***** FACE!”

The orb is the future. The orb is good. We can track marriage rates in between census years by how many replacement orbs have been purchased. Say there’s an uptick in red orb sales, now we know that the marriage rate is lower than expected in a given year. It’s genius and you can’t deny it.

So heed my proposal, dear reader. An orb-based future is one we can believe in. Depending on our pilot proposal program, we can slowly introduce more themed orbs for all of life’s decisions.

The orb can say the words you don’t want to. Let this be the beginning of a beautiful future, for all of us.