Permanent Downtime

I wish the geniuses who came up with the "Petster" would turn their big brains to inventing the "Kidster." A simple switch on the back of the neck would preclude incommodious behavior such as what happened to the guardians of these biological units:

In East St. Louis, a 4-year-old girl has died and her 2-year-old brother is in critical condition.

Police in East St. Louis say they found the girl dead inside her home yesterday after someone from the residence placed a 911 call for an ambulance.
...
A police officer who responded to the call also found a 2-year-old boy who appeared to be groggy and he was airlifted to a St. Louis hospital. His condition was not available last night.

East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Baxton says officers were sent to the home late yesterday afternoon after a call from someone who said the four-year-old was not breathing.

Baxton said it appeared that the child had been dead for four to six hours.

News 4 is told by a source familiar with the investigation that the two young children were in the care of their aunt and another person who allegedly wanted the two children to go to sleep and take a nap.

But when the children did not go to sleep, they were allegedly given some type of pills to make them drowsy.

All these legal repercussions for want of a switch. So much promising technology remains tantalizingly out of reach.