I want a flexible foam tollbooth gate kind of thing for my kitchen doors that I can put down when the kids aren't allowed in the kitchen.

Flexible so that you can walk right through it, but stiff enough to stand up an establish a visual barrier.

I could put up swing gates, but that's a pain, and all they really need is a reminder until the fries (or spaghetti or whatever) are done.
-- nomocrow, Jan 24 2008

Foam fingers http://www.foamhands.com/index.html
Save money - get the five-finger model! [Canuck, Jan 25 2008]

Electric fencer ?
-- 8th of 7, Jan 24 2008


space-time vortex?
-- xandram, Jan 24 2008


Should be made of semolina, surely?
-- DrCurry, Jan 24 2008


// space-time vortex? //

Good, but somewhat power-hungry.
-- 8th of 7, Jan 24 2008


Bamboo blind?
-- sprogga, Jan 25 2008


Death ray?
-- hippo, Jan 25 2008


laser security field like you see in the movies... by the time they limbo their way through, dinner's ready and they have an appetite.
-- FlyingToaster, Jan 25 2008


Get a bunch of those foam fingers you see at sports events ("we're number one!") and tape them to the walls on each side of the doorway so they point horizontally across the opening, overlapping each other all the way down, one pointing left, the next to the right, and so on.

On second thought, this would probably make the kids just want to run through the doorway over and over and over...
-- Canuck, Jan 25 2008


Van der Graaf generator. Every time they attempt to pass through the doorway they get zapped and wild blue flashes light up the doorway.
-- UnaBubba, Jan 27 2008


Make them out of fairy floss. (JesUSistan: cotton candy)
-- ConsulFlaminicus, Jan 27 2008


What about installing a secret door...like a revolving bookcase or a sliding fireplace, that is activated by lifting a candle or tilting a certain book on the shelf...you could wait until no one is looking, open the secret door and enter the solace of a completely kid free kitchen...cook, read, dream, invent, toast, boil...what ever to your heart's content...the, cheking through a secret pericsope to spy the area adjacent to the secret door, to make sure no one will see where you cand the dinner came from, re-enter the house, place the vittle on the dining table, ring the triangle calling them to dinner....you would be amazing.
-- Blisterbob, Jan 31 2008


If there were books, I might not come back out, and the children would be hungry.

Lovely image, though. There was a big oak tree outside the parlor of my parents house when I was a kid. When seen through a particular window at dusk, the door to the kitchen was superimposed on the tree. I always imagined the inside of the tree to be like something you describe, a kitchen with no one in it, a table, a book shelf, a globe, a case of maps ...
-- nomocrow, Jan 31 2008


arrange the children's homework on the kitchen table while cooking and you are ensured of some solo "quality time"
-- FlyingToaster, Feb 01 2008


When I was a child we had an imaginary door. If I went through it while it was closed, I got a spanking. I never went through the door again.
-- Jscotty, Feb 01 2008


Spanking them isn't usually necessary - it's not an open defiance thing, one of my kids is usually thinking of six things at once, and she forgets. I can empathize with that.
-- nomocrow, Feb 01 2008


Wait a minute, so it's okay to cut children off from your ever valued presence? Is not the pain of separation unbearably cruel? [marked-for-temporary-spite]
-- daseva, Oct 22 2008


// Is not the pain of separation unbearably cruel? //

Yes, of course, otherwise what's the point ?
-- 8th of 7, Oct 22 2008


I mother had a way to do this. It was a simple phrase delivered at maximum volume as soon as we entered the house. "Stay outta the kitchen I just washed the floor." No one ever checked the floor to see if she had washed it either. We took her word for it.
-- theGem, Oct 22 2008



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