"The `Rents"

"Do your chores."

"You'll spoil your dinner."

"Eat your vegetables."

"When you're older."

"You're grounded!"

I've never been grounded, but that doesn't make the prospect any less scary.

There are some forces that I can imagine even the most twisted supervillain has to buckle under to at some point in their careers. The kingpin to even the most seemingly powerful person. And we all know them - they're not some underground force that no one knows or sees. Nope.

The parents.

And where would we be without them? Without them to guide us when we go wrong, to back us up, to stand behind us and support us. We would probably end up as a bunch of crazies, wouldn't we? Yes. We would.

In fact, the world would probably be a mad, raving pool of psychopaths. People of every generation, old or young, would be running amuck, "frolicking" and causing "ruckus" and behaving horribly for no particular reason other than,

"Hey, who's gonna stop me?"

Yeah.

Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman grew up with his aunt and uncle, but if he hadn't had at least those first few years of parental wisdom, picture the chaos he could cause.

So next time you're sitting in your room with your fake ID confiscated and two weeks of no video games ahead of you, wallowing in self pity, think about that.

- your most erratic hero