A few days ago I realised I’d let my nasal hairs go too long without a trim. I realised when a 2 year old I know pointed them out. She likes to say how soft people’s hair is, and told me I had “softs” in my nose. When a kid spots the softs in your nose, that’s a dead giveaway that your personal grooming has slipped.

This little interaction got me thinking, though. What if you could somehow harness that innocent honesty? What if the complete lack of guile combined with wide-eyed wonder at all the world around them could become a power for good, not evil. Can you see where I’m going? I want someone to develop an iPhone app called “2YO”. Before going anywhere important such as a business meeting, a date, or a job interview, you could scan the iPhone up and down your body like a metal detector, and then wait for the programmed two-year-old-intelligence simulator to let you know how you look. As well as notification that there were softs in your nose it could give other important feedback such as “you smell funny”, “your eyebrows stick out”, or the classic “that a clown shirt”. This could help in so many situations. My wife today tried to signal to me I had something stuck in my teeth. I thought she was licking her fingers after finishing her lunch. 2YO would have no such subtlety: “Why your teeth green?” would be all you’d need to hear to prevent a social disaster. Of course when 2YO says “Where your hair gone?” or “You old. You fat.” then there’s probably not much you can do other than suck it in and hope for the best.

The only other downside I can see is if, having addressed all unforseen personal grooming disasters, when your job interview is going along wonderfully, 2YO decides to chuck a tantrum screaming for a biscuit. The other difficulty is how you fit a diaper to an iPhone; you would not want an accident whilst making an important call. Hmm, there may be a few bugs to work out before this hits the app store. In the meantime you could always polish up the back of the iPhone to work like a mirror.