baby, it's you.

Okay, just to warn you: in the following post I'm going to sound like one of those people. Which is fine. I'm okay with that. I've been one of those people for as long as I can remember. Let's face it... When you scratch my misanthropic, curmudgeonly surface, there's just another layer of creamy, nougat-like Andy Rooneyness. Of course, I'd like to think I'm an eensy bit less idiotic than Andy Rooney was. After all, I don't spend my allotted soapbox time kvetching about zippers or express lanes in supermarkets. My bugaboos tend to be more profound and worthy of in-depth consideration. (While I was typing that, I remembered that I recently rambled on for several paragraphs about being called 'sir' by teenagers. But maybe you've forgotten all about that and are busy recalling my hot-button posts on abortion or American politics.)

Damn. That disclaimer really got out of hand. It's as if the Surgeon General sat down with a pencil and notepad to compose a powerful yet pithy new cigarette warning and ended up writing The Gulag Archipelago. 

Anyway. What I meant to talk about is babies. Well, maybe not babies so much as the parents of babies—who, in more cases than not, are complete dicks. You know the drill. Two saps fall in 'love' (or something like it), get married (or not), and then dutifully spawn. Most people can't bear the thought of adopting an unwanted child and thereby squandering their own precious genetic stockpile. You can understand why. They might potentially give birth to a messiah or a brain surgeon or a high-fashion model or something—and it just wouldn't be fair to screw the world out of that possibility. That womb must not lie fallow. For the good of humanity.

So what if the world is a shithole that will inevitably turn their gassy bundles of joy into drug-addicted reality TV stars? So what if there are already countless cripples, 'ethnics,' and ugly kids who already need good homes? Josh and Kaylee need to scratch that procreation itch. 

This weekend, as you may or may not know, was Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. So if you are a baby-hating crank like me, your odds of having to spend at least some time around the drooling little gnomes is significantly increased. I am not immune to these odds. My sister 'Andrea' and her husband 'Paul' gave birth to their first child 'Lily' this year. With no exaggeration—or none that I'm willing to admit to—Lily has turned out to be the diapered equivalent of an IED which detonates at every family get-together, splattering blood and viscera all over my mother's earth-tone kitchen wallpaper. Okay. That's not really an accurate comparison, but what I'm trying to get across is that this baby has changed everything. Forever. She's like a vacuum that not only sucks up everyone's attention, but their identities too. Lily has turned my dictatorial, ultra-right-wing father into a baby-talking, face-making retard. (Which, when I really think about it, is actually an upgrade. What am I complaining about here exactly?) 

I should be fair here. I have nothing against Lily. She's actually okay—as far as babies go. Sure, she's a shiftless layabout who can't even eat without requiring a round of applause afterwards, but she doesn't cry a lot, she's even-tempered, and she isn't butt ugly. It's her parents that are the assholes. They're the ones who fuss over her constantly. We get it already! You had a baby! She's wonderful. She's the baby to end all babies. I know that other people think they've had babies before, but nobody has had a baby like you had a baby. You just tore that shit up. Innumerable generations of second-rate babies have littered the baby testing grounds—until finally you crapped out the perfect infant. 

I know this post doesn't exactly support the assertion I am about to make, but I am a reasonable human being. (Sometimes. Occasionally. Once in awhile.) But I just can't imagine wanting to surrender my life to be the on-call ass-wiper for a bawling lump of gelatinous flesh that's probably just going to end up being an asshole like 99.467% of the population. I really do have a natural propensity for self-negation, but even I have limits.

The upshot of the holiday I spent with the First-Time Parents From Hell is that I'm thankful I've eluded the urge to procreate. And I'm guessing the world at large shares in this gratitude—because any child I raised might be destined to mount clocktowers with unregistered firearms someday. 

So, yeah. I'm basically doing you a favor. (You're welcome.)