Hostage negotiation seems like it would be a weird career to be in. Like, are there four year programs for that? Can you go to Harvard and major in Telling People to Put the Gun Down with a concentration in We Can Work Through This Together? I suppose it’s a police-school thing, or military academy stuff or something like that, but it’d be great if you could do one of those ‘earn your degree from home’ programs like they advertise at 2am on local network affiliates. Just six weeks! And a whole crop of self-deluded amateur hostage negotiators, standing outside a bank with a rolled up cone of yellow construction paper hollering at the robbers inside, “hey! You should really not be doing that! It’s bad and, um, you could go to jail? Why don’t you just stop being so, oh, so darned poopyface I HATE YOU”

I think grandmas would be good negotiators. Just a plate of cookies and that sort of withering, knowing-but-forgiving look.