And the best part is, they work for Happy Meals!

Aww, how adorable. Remember how kids used to have lemonade stands, and they'd mix up the stuff and try to get people to stop and buy some at maybe five cents a glass, and since even forty years ago a nickle didn't buy much of anything at all it was really more all in fun and about engaging in a project which took advantage of those summer days that seemed to never end?

Well, fuck that, it's 2011, and according to Verizon it's never too early for our kids to be molded into money-obsessed, grasping, penny-pinching corporate zombies. And it's never been easier to use technology to

A. Keep track of inventory
B. Keep track of the wage slaves---err, "staff."
C. Keep track of every penny of "profit" that trickles into your "small business," including the money that comes in via credit cards (credit cards used to buy lemonade? Awesome message you're sending there, Verizon. I swear, in another year we'll see people establishing credit as fetuses.)

And isn't the result oh so adorable? Grim-faced automatons barking orders into cell phones, sending important-looking graphics to the worker drones, sitting behind massive desks to advertise their status as America's Most Productive. These kids are one step away from financing a Tea Party rally.

Anyway- I don't have kids, so maybe I'm out of line here, but do we really want to see children taking life (and money which, believe it or not, is really not the same thing) so seriously? Does every activity have to be about organizing and graphing and scheduling and shipping and "succeeding" (by raking in the dough, of course?) Is there any room for innocent fun anymore? My guess is that the answer is "no"- that play and imagination and pointless, silly fun went the way of the dodo as soon as we decided to sell our souls for Connectivity.

Still- I wish companies like Verizon could just leave the kids alone.