Daughter on subway: "My assignment is to describe a utopia. What would yours be?"

Me: "That is such an interesting assignment! Let's see. The variables that one usually has to take into account are a feeling of happiness, personal freedom versus state power in that society and the levely of equality. Hm..."

Daughter: "You make it too complex!" I want it to be just a place that one can visit to reload one's happiness batteries. Then one would be ready to face regular life again."

Me: "Oh so it would not be a full utopia, just like centers that one could visit? What if people never wanted to leave these centers?"

Daughter: "They would be forced to leave. There would be sensors to measure whether someone's happiness was reloaded. These centers would be super nice with a lot of light and nice furniture and nice people."

Me: "A lot of light so that you could cope with the darkness say, in wintertime?"

Daughter: "Yes!"

[Fellow subway commuters visibly interested in conversation.]

Me: "So you would need the people at these centers to treat you nicely? In that case I guess they better be trained staff because you know how a lot of tired random visitors at a bar are unlikely to pour loving attention on each other without wanting anything back."

Daughter: "Yes!"

Me: "I believe you are describing a solarium."

Daughter: "Yes! No! You are ruining the assignment! I mean you could just go there and get an injection of happiness!"

Me: "Oh, you are speaking of the kind of utopia that is achieved by means of chemicals?"

Daughter: "No! I just said that. Of course I don't mean chemicals. Maybe something that has not been invented yet."

Me: "So when you say "injection" you mean that in a metaphorical sense?"

Daughter: "You are impossible to speak with. This is my stop. Bye."

Conclusions: a) Swedish schools aren't as bad as thought. b) Reading science fiction for decades may prepare you for engineering a theoretical society but it does precious little to prepare you for parenting.