My little brother, BopIt, got married almost a year ago. On a walk around the lake with Raul and The Midge, he asked for gift ideas to celebrate his paper anniversary.
“I was thinking concert tickets,” he said, “but there aren’t any concerts coming up.”
“Erroneous! Sorry Midge. Didn’t mean to scare you. Here, let this pacifier soothe you. Concert tickets are a great idea. Super tender. And clever. And you’re in luck: MC Hammer. Casino Morongo. June 21. Saw the billboard on the way up to Arrowhead last weekend. Nothing says romance like crab pants. Take that as you will.”
“Gross. Okay, what else?”
“What about a parking ticket? Or something made with papier mache – oh! A police officer piñata stuffed with parking tickets.”
Silence.
“No good?”
“It’s kind of cheesy,” BopIt said, “but I saw there’s this company that makes newspapers of your first year together—“
“What about an obituary?!”
“What is wrong with you?” This from Raul, who had contributed a total of zero ideas. “I got it,” he said. “How ‘bout a gondola ride around the bay—“
“A boat made of paper?!” I interjected. “It would sink! Though you could get your obituary that way.”
“Fine. How ‘bout AIDS test results showing a false positive?”
“Yes!” I said. “You’d be like, ‘Surprise! We have AIDS.’ Then you’d be like, ‘Surprise! Just kidding!’ Talk about having something to celebrate.”
As a sufferer of Low-Functioning Human (LFH) Disorder, I’m pretty proud of myself when I manage to put on pants in a given month. So you can imagine my joy when I successfully took The Midge for her first public outing in the Baby Bjorn just now. Yes, this is what my life has come to: celebrating the fact that I didn’t drop my baby on her head in Target. Eat your aorta out, Hilary Clinton! What did you do today?! Oh. A lot more than manage to not accidentally kill a baby? Good for you.
I know I shouldn’t feel this is such a huge accomplishment, but I’ve had countless daymares of improper buckling leading to a gnarly parking lot disaster. I’m not crazy – that thing has more straps and hooks than Christian Grey’s red room. Combine that with the Squirm Worm, my inability to follow Swedish directions – turns out Ikea cribs aren’t supposed to be collapsible – and it’s a miracle we didn’t just inspire a Law & Order episode.
And I’m still in shock that The Midge smiled the whole trip – unlike the cashier, who scoffed in horror while ringing up my Trojans. Guess she didn’t appreciate my whole “Fool me once,” comment as I patted Midge’s head.
Maybe it’s lame to feel excited when you get your kid through the day without stitches or a massive meltdown on aisle five, but for those of us who were already overwhelmed by the task of getting out of bed, surviving an encounter with the outside world is kind of a big deal.
So, the eTrade baby’s gonna be on Celebrity Rehab any day now, right? I mean, he’s pretty much the youngest child star ever and we all know what happens to those kids. I bet he’s already getting 86ed from Hollywood clubs.
Bartender: Sir, if you’re just going to sit at the bar crying and shitting yourself, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.
eTrade Baby: Don’t you know who I am?
Bartender: Reece Witherspoon’s kid?
eTrade Baby: I’m the goddamn Mr. Ed of zygotes is who I am! Now fetch me another apple-cran and make it snappy! This sippy cup won’t fill itself.
Scarlett Johansson: Aw, it’s the eTrade baby. You’re such a cute wittle – hey! Hey! Are you motorboating me? Stop that!
You’d think motherhood would be anxiety activator numero uno, with a capital Uno – and before I hatched my fetus just weeks ago, I’d have bet my life on it, too. But the truth is: every day, I’m exponentially happier than the day before. I smile more. I laugh more. I don’t care about the stupid things I used to worry about. I guess I’ve just always liked midgets so much. It’s either that or I’m just really high on breastfeeding hormones.
I’m sure the four-month vacay from work isn’t hurting, either. Every day I’m not writing about three-node RAC clusters and VM deduplication is another day my inner monologue creeps back up to audible decibels. Instead of zombie-shuffling through monotonous workdays focused only on the best way to arrange IT jargon, my brain meat is once again free to engage in the kind of observations that once fueled this blog. I’m starting to feel like myself again in a way I never could while obsessing over work. Of course the zygote’s still got me pretty sleep deprived. But I’m coming back to life. And it’s all because of her.
The best thing about The Midge is that she’s a goddamn chameleon. One second she’s clones with Kim Jong Un – with her straight black hair and half-mast almond peepers; the next, she’s no longer a fat little Korean man in drag but a hungry, one-eyed pirate. When she’s full, all stuffed and smug, she resembles the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland: her mouth a perfect circle inside huge round cheeks, her soft double chin resting on crossed rolly wrists and a plump rolly body.
Holding her the other night, I reveled in her ability to channel the visage of an aging Elizabeth Taylor. I could see The Midge as an old lady, inching her cart of freeze-dried astro-food groceries down a Brooklyn street. She’d stop to reprimand a cluster of kids on a stoop. Clad in shiny silver suits, they’d stop playing Who Can Mind Meld the Best Hologram and laugh as Midge croaked out such anachronistic dictums as, “Turn down that iPod, whippersnappers! You can’t just go blasting your MP3s all willy nilly!”
Imagining my daughter, so new to this world, so full of life and promise, nearing the end of her time here made me think about heaven. If everything went properly, I’d have been waiting for her up there for a couple decades before her back would begin to stoop and her hair gray. But how could any place be called heaven if my daughter isn’t there with me? It hit me then that this is my heaven: holding her tiny, warm body to my chest, knowing she’s safe, healthy, and content. Right now, I thought, I am in heaven. I could almost feel the immensity of gratitude one would if they’d lost their dearest loved one only to be reunited.
I thought about how wonderful it is to hold your sleeping baby. To be able to just place her where you want her and it’s exactly where she wants to be as well. For now, she’s not getting into cars with boys. For now, she’s not at college 15 states away. She’s not busy with her own kids and life. She’s simply peacefully unaware of anything other than love and milk and sleep. A grin flickered at the corners of her lips, as she nestled deeper against me. This, I thought, is exactly why she makes me so happy: She forces me to be present and grateful.
She looked up at me then, holding my gaze with such a serious intensity that I believed she knew my thoughts, that we were connected on some deep, telekinetic level. And, looking into my eyes with that unflinching stare…she ripped the loudest, longest shart I’ve ever heard. I laughed so hard Raul came in to ask what the hell was wrong with me. I guess I’m just in love.
For my first monologue, I shall reenact “An Insanely Inappropriate Use of One’s Sphincter Muscles,” from the movie Stepbrothers.
First, you gave me Broken Bells. Then Fanfarlo and next Tokyo Police Club. And now? We Were Promised Jetpacks?! You complete me and sh*t, Pandora.
Unlike Netflix with its smug conviction that I’ll just looove “Kung Fu: Enter the Fist” (disgusting — I don’t even want to know) and the full season of “Canterbury’s Law” (starring Juliana Margulies and her 18-century-moustache eyebrows), you understand my needs.
Pandora, will you accept this rose? Let’s go make out like you’re Casey and I’m Vienna, only I actually won’t mind getting guilt raped by you in front of green-lensed night-vision cameras…and all of America. Guard and protect my heart, Pandora! Guard and protect it!
On a related note, I just experienced the anger and rage that is Awolnation’s single “Sail.” It made me realize that (a.) there are, in proctology terms, a buttload of sailing songs out there, e.g., Enya’s “Sail Away,” Cartman’s “Come Sail Away,” and “Sailing…Takes Me Away” by some one-hit-wonder whom, I imagine, probably looks like my dad, maybe has the same Cat Stevens beard and whatnot, and (b.) most sailing songs suck balls.
And while I applaud Awolnation for breaking the tradition of keeping songs about sailing light, airy, and as soothing as a wind-blown sheet in a Downey-ball-of-freshness commercial, I’m just not sure violently screaming at the listener to take up boat transportation is the best approach for getting someone out to sea. Maybe it’s just me, but I think I’d feel more comfortable having more than just maritime “law” standing between me and what sounds like a certifiable psychopath. Then again, as far as sailing songs go, this one kind of rocks.
That’s the thing about the restroom in your office: No matter what decision you make, the outcome? Never good. Uh uh. There’s always that one stall, the Goldilocks of stalls ─ ooo, it is so perfect ─ but goddamn it, the lock doesn’t work. Out of the question. Unusable. Erroneous! Never mind that you’ve worked in the building over a year and it has never been fixed, never been tended to. Oh no. Never will be, either. That stall door will swing open and closed, embarrassing each and every new employee at least once depending on how stupid they are and apt to remember what was behind door number one. Oh, their naked nether region exposed to the entire company, that’s what. So you saw the prez take the luxurious handi-man spot. And what do you know, the one right next to it (next to HER) is the only other one that either A) does not swing open like a saloon door as soon as you drop trou’ or B) does not have a wide enough door-to-stall-wall gap so that anyone washing their hands and looking up in the mirror sees your nude chonch. Oh yeah. You know it. You really want to take that stall. It is the perfect stall. But it is too close. So what do you do? Pop a squat just politely far enough away from VP so as not to let her hear each tinkle of that Capri Sun you just sucked down for lunch? Give it a little space…only to look up and BOOM! Make eye contact in the mirror. Only it isn’t even eye contact is it? It is VP eye to your inferior vajayjay contact. And whether you are recently waxed, sporting a bush the likes of which no one has seen since the debut of “I’m Gone Getcha Sucka,” or doing the old elastic loosening swoop on your granny panties, it is not OK. Whatever your situation is? It is wrong in this moment. Oh, it is so wrong and you are so busted. But here’s the other thing, right? It’s like Hayzeus Christo, you sought gainful employment outside a gdang strip club for a reason. You’re not paying the bills by getting involved in a goddamn oil-doused midget wrestling match in some Podunk backwoods bar in Appalachia. You’re a professional working woman with a degree from a university that does not spend its so-called education budget advertising its wares with daytime TV commercials. You command respect! You shouldn’t be hovering over someone else’s pee remnants ─ who the F keeps peeing on this seat every time anyway?! You want to install a camera. Figure who the hell is not housebroken. I know! I feel the same way. You shouldn’t be in physical and emotional agony, your squat burning your thighs to ashes like the nebulous memory of your dignity. It’s just like going to the gyno. Hm. Does she think I’m whore because I shaved myself like Michael Phelps before a Subway commercial or does she think I’m a disgusting lazy pig because I’ve got Al Sharpton in the wrestling pose commonly referred to as The Leg Guillotine? Yeah. You’re fucked. And that’s why the only answer is to eliminate the consumption of any beverages. All. Day. Long. Oh yeah. That’s working out great for me. I’ve got adult acne caused by toxicity build up and dehydration, I practically die eighteen times per hot yoga session, but you know what? El presidente has no idea what’s going on downstairs. And that, my friends, is the ultimate in Goldilocks stalls.
“Funny. It appears somebody has absconded with my beaker of hydrochloric acid. Was it you, Tito? Well, answer me, yee of little height! Answer me at once!” Dr. Golan paced about his ostrich skin carpeting, his white hair flying behind him as he stormed the laboratory.
“Yes, I do believe it was,” he said to his midget. “For I-eeeeee.” He paused just then and stroked his goatee. “For I-eeee can only trust you…”
Ripping his monocle from his lazy eye, he sized up young Tito, losing track momentarily as he began to admire his midget’s neatly tailored capris. Then, his anger blazing anew, he made yet another silent calculation, as he gazed into the near distance. ”For I can only trust you approximately 54.7 percent repeating as far as I can throw you.”
Tito shuddered, not just because he found Dr. Golan’s rages terrifying, but because who the hell covers one’s floors with bird skin? Feathers, he could understand. But bird carcass? Carcasses pulled taught?! Who indeed, Tito thought.
And as Golan lurched toward him, wielding a disembodied beak, Tito saw the answer clearly: a madman.
The same madman who, as a young boy in the Kazakhs, once lost the final ingredient for his penile growth serum to a thirsty, and now well-endowed, ostrich. An ostrich that his father, a kleptomaniac zoologist, mistakenly believed would make a nice family pet. But it was Tito who would pay. And pay dearly — at the wrong end of the beak.
