Flat Daddies

I thought that the Piers Anthony blurb would be the weirdest and most depressing thing I would read about today. I was wrong.

From the Boston Globe, by way of Daily Kos:

Guard families cope in two dimensions : `Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.

But now, thanks to a popular family-support program, they're even closer.

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said (K.J.) of (C.), whose husband, (J.), is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

At the request of relatives, about 200 Flat Daddy and Flat Mommy photos have been enlarged and printed at the state National Guard headquarters in Augusta. The families cut out the photos, which show the Guard members from the waist up, and glue them to a $2 piece of foam board....

At what point did I stop living in the reality-based world and start living in a twisted Saturday Night Live skit?

If I ever went to war, I'd have decidedly mixed feelings about being replaced by a cardboard cutout. Displaying and honoring a photograph of an absent person makes perfect sense. It's a reminder of the person, but does not pretend to be a replacement for them. Carrying a cardboard cutout around and propping it up in chairs and sofas is just a bit... creepy.

How 'bout we install Flat Bush and Flat Cheney and Flat Rumsfeld in Washington D.C. and send the originals to Iraq, just like the real daddies and mommies in the Globe story?

Note: I elided the identities of individuals in the story excerpt above, in case they find this story horribly embarrassing upon later reflection.