One day, as I put away dishes in my kitchen, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips sings, “Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me, but you won't let those robots eat me,” and I start to sob.

I am a ridiculous person.

In younger days I railed against sentimentality. I was stoic as they come. But aging and parenthood have eroded my toughness. I've become a total sap. I'm a 37-year-old man who cries at Bowie songs. At cartoons and old movies. I can't make it through 10 minutes of "Kiki's Delivery Service." Between "It's a Wonderful Life" and Albert Finney's "Scrooge," I'll be a wreck this Christmas.

But still — this is “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” It's a novelty song. The melody is simple and sweet, and the lyrics read like a cheap comic book plot: “Those evil natured robots / they're programmed to destroy us. / She's gotta be strong to fight them / so she's taking lots of vitamins.” I sob harder with each word. Vitamins!

The plates and cups are spotless, warm from the dishwasher. One daughter sits at the table, reading Tamora Pierce. Another devises scenarios for Polly Pockets in the next room. They are healthy and well-adjusted. It's a sunny afternoon. None of my friends has ever been crushed by a falling piano.

If Zoe looks up from her book, she'll wonder what's wrong with me. What is wrong with me? “'Cause she knows that / it'd be tragic / if those evil robots win.” When the girls were babies, I sang this song while rocking them to sleep. I've heard it countless times. I have never found the lyrics serious or sad: “I know she can beeeeaat them.”

It's like listening to a kid who doesn't know better than to believe in his comic books. A kid who fears that giant pink robots really are poised to sink their teeth into him.

Here's the thing. I think he's right.

I don't always like where the world is going. When leaders discuss our future (as often they do) in terms of "competing in the global economy," I worry. The phrase suggests a vision of the human being as a set of skills to be plugged into a market need -- as though that should be our highest purpose and aspiration. It's as if the computer age has taught us to think of ourselves as programmable. We are asked each day to relinquish a little more of our humanness. By products and the conglomerates that pitch them. By cubicles and screens. By educational “standards” measured by Scantron machines.

Those evil natured robots: they're programmed to destroy us. But we also live in an age of masterful public relations, in which the most destructive ideas appear in the brightest, friendliest packaging. So the robots are pink.

Against all this, the silly kid in the song pins his very survival on an imaginary girl with a blackbelt in karate. His only hope is just a story. This is what hits me, suddenly, in the presence of my daughters, in the midst of a routine kitchen chore, and reduces me to tears.

My daughters love stories: the hearing and the making. Their favorite games are invented: Old Days Laundry Farm, Kung Fu Panda Pen. Their superhero tools include scissors that cut things a mile away and cell phones that let you talk to animals. I admire this gift to see beyond what things appear to be and to envision their own paths. I want to spend my life feeding it. Because imagination is what I believe can save them from all the world's dehumanizing forces.

The English poet Shelley wrote in 1821 that "the great instrument of moral good is the imagination." He argued that imagination is the basis for human empathy, compassion, and love. If so, then imagination is what can save all of us from the world's dehumanizing forces. I believe this. It's why I write poems and why I teach. It's why, when I cry over a joke song, they're not tears of despair.

Scott Beal is a poet, educator, freelance writer, and stay-at-home father of two. You can reach him at swbeal@gmail.com.