This week a dangerous new trend is lighting up the world – catching fairies in a jar. Who is doing this and how and why?
It may seem fun to catch a travelling fairy and keep it in a jar but if you or someone you love is planning to engage in this dangerous new hobby, stop and read this first. Your very survival depends on it!
You may have seen it going around, fairy trap making instructions that describe how to bait a clear glass jar with the contents of a broken glow stick and bits of coloured paper to simulate fairy dust, before strategically placing the jar in the branches of trees in high traffic fairy areas. The idea here being that fairies, like birds and insects and other flying beasts and beings, have difficulty detecting the presence of glass at high speed.
“If you have positioned the baited jar just right, in the middle of a known fairy chemin {fairy highway} the jar will light up when a fairy flies in it. This is your signal to place the lid and screw it tight,” reads one dangerous website before going on to describe fun party games you can play with a fairy in a jar, games like Shake the Fairy and Make a Wish. Games that are just so wrong on so many levels.
How many levels? Well start with three:
LEVEL ONE WRONGNESS OF FAIRY JARS:
Shaking a fairy in a jar might seem like a fun little personal light show to you but think about it from the fairy’s point of view. You have just trapped her/him in travel form, a form that looks like a pretty streak or ball of light to you and fits easily into your jar now, but which must be maintained by sustained unidirectional motion. By shaking your fairy, you are making her dizzy and very possibly sick to her stomach, which in turn makes it difficult if not impossible for her to maintain light travel form. Plus, it’s a little known fact that while fairies don’t really eat per sey, they are world-famous vomiters.
And if your fairy can’t maintain travel form, then what happens? Well for starters:
LEVEL TWO WRONGNESS:
What makes you think all fairies will fit comfortably in your little jar anyway? Sure, in motion, they all look like a pretty ball of light or will-o-wisp or whatever but that’s where the similarities end. Have you ever seen a tooth fairy at work, for instance? If you have, then you know what I’m talking about. Do you really want an angry tooth fairy who didn’t make his quota that day because you trapped him in a tiny jar without even a single air hole poked in the lid? Which brings me to….
LEVEL THREE WRONGNESS:
After you stuff a busy fairy into a jar with no lid and shake her around for a few hours, do you really think she is going to grant you a magic food stick that makes every kind of food appear on it? Why? Just because you opened the lid and offered to let him out? Really?
Even if you can convince the fairy you weren’t the one who trapped her in the jar, that you’re just the helpy bystander to let her out – which you probably can’t because that fairy is going to be mad – but even if you could, think about it. Fairies are not omniscient or omnipotent beings. Each fairy has their particular area of specialization. What makes you think you have captured the right fairy for your wish? You could have a delayed a simple Parking Fairy in that jar. Or the even lesser known, Lost Sock Fairy. Point is, he or she probably can’t give you millions of dollars — even if he wanted to. Which this fairy most assuredly does not want to do because you trapped him in a jar, remember?
Which brings us to…
WRONGNESS LEVEL FOUR:
Ever trap a bee in a Coke bottle, shake it up and then let it go? If you have then you know what I’m talking about. Now multiply that by a thousand times and add some fairy magic. What do you get? Bad hair for life. Missing socks. A stem where your legs used to be. Not a party, let’s just be clear.
