Well, with our household resources being used up by additional persons that we did not count on, we knew something had to be done. We could have taken an approach that favored those that were already here. Just stop more from coming in. Instead, we decided the only solution was to purge the house of any manifestation of their presence. We went on a witch hunt burning books, destroying Dora Castles, breaking CDs. We even went so far as to completely outlaw the use of maps or spanish in the house. We would become francophonic (albeit difficult in Southern California).

Our initial decision was very popular amongst several groups. First the labor groups openly supported our decision. The leader of the labor party called this “a smurfingly positive step towards the establishment of equal opportunity. Other groups also saw new opportunity. For instance Toot and Puddle, two male companions that travel the world together, initially supported our decision, saying that equality should first be guaranteed for currently legal persons. Little Bill chimed in stating that this would certainly add to his popularity and therefore could not be bad.

But not everyone was on board. One unintended consequence of our decision was that we alienated Handy Manny. Apparently, Handy Manny felt like our new decision to only extend access to non-annoying programing put him at risk of being alienated, even though he had never been annoying in the past. We were certainly at a dilemma. While Dora and her friends brought about certain characteristics that we did not care for, we did not anticipate losing out on Handy Manny. Also, very soon, Toot and Puddle and Little Bill both changed their minds about the new decision. They realized that we could very easily decide that we wanted to limit cartoons to only male and female pigs together, or even force certain cartoons in unattractive time slots at the end of the day. Losing their support made us reconsider.

But what really pushed us over the edge and back into reality was realizing who liked the law — namely the labor movement. At first, they were quite congenial. “We are just interested in smurfing work for those that are here legally.” But the more things moved along, the more belligerent they became. “They began to organize into militias, guarding the remote control, and even telling my daughter, “Don’t you Smurf with us! Don’t you even think about Smurfing with us.” I don’t even know that means I told her, but it sounded very obscene. Also, the Smurfs, did not really even bring value. We tried to build a tree house with them, but they insisted that we use their proprietary mushroom design and pay four times the cost of what it would have cost before.

We finally realized that we messed up. We listened to the group that we should have ignored all along. I mean its not like they were not vested in seeing that our household tune away from Dora. We also realized that Dora and all her friends maybe created some inconveniences, but also brought about good things too. They made our children more diverse and open to a diverse world. And because of that, I am happy to say that Dora has been made welcome into our home again. And the costs, whatever they may be, are well worth it.