The Voices In My Head Are Telling Me To Hit You With This Plank Of Wood

The paddle is long since gone from classrooms, but Joey Salvati from New Kensington is trying to bring it back into vogue. In fact, he's giving paddles and instructions away for free on his website, spare-rods.com.

Interesting idea. Certainly Jasper from The Simpsons understood the effectiveness of the paddle:



The part that's fascinating is that Joey, like Elwood Blues, sees himself as being on a mission from God:

"[Salvati], 39, a father of two, was in the shower about a month ago when he first heard God speak to him about the matter. Whether it was an external or internal voice, he wasn't sure. He tried to ignore it, but it kept coming back, day after day, until he realized he had to do something about it."
-Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Again, intriguing premise. We don't hate the idea of the paddle, but when a guy tells us that the voices in his head keep coming back, day after day, we tend to worry a little. Replace "God" with "the space men" or "Orson Welles" in the paragraph above and most people would assume that he's not hooked up properly. Just food for thought.

Although, who knows. Maybe we just need a good paddlin'.