"He cries himself to sleep at night on his huge pilluh."
"That thing’s like Spootnik. It's got its own weather system."
"It's like an orange on a toothpick."
I think he heard me talking about him to the nurses and formulated a plan to get back at me. I firmly believe at night in the nursery he and all the other newborns struck up a conversation and decided it was time for a revolution. Viva la newborns!
I knew I should have kept him in my room the whole time I was there. But come on people, I needed some rest. Those were the last days I would ever get to sleep again, and I took full advantage of it. I should have kept a better eye on which kid they put his bassinet next to at night though. I knew that little brat Zeno would be a bad influence on my kid. He had “anarchy” written all over his face. And who named their kid Zeno anyway? That was just asking for an ass-kicking on the playground.
Gavin was quiet, never fussed, and he slept all the time in the hospital. I laughed in the face of my friends who came to visit and told me he wouldn’t be like this once we left. In reality, Gavin did the laughing, waving his tiny little fist of fury in the air for his brothers in the Newborn Nation. I swore I heard, “Infant Pride! Baby Power!” every time he made noises in his sleep.
The moment I got him in the car to go home, the jig was up. He screamed his head off like a wild banshee and didn’t stop for four days. I have no idea what a wild banshee was or if they even existed, but if they did, I was sure they were loud as fuck. The only good thing about this whole ordeal was the fact that my kid refused to leave my body via my lady bits. No roast beefy beaver for this woman. All the baby books written by women who had the most perfect birth experience in the world said you should talk to your child in the womb. That was about the only piece of advice I took from those things. Every day I told him if he ruined my vagina I would video tape his birth and show all his future girlfriends what happened to your who-ha when you had sex, ensuring that he will never, ever get laid. Fuck playing Mozart and reading Shakespeare. I went with the scared straight method.
All my threats to him in the womb paid off. He sat there with his arms crossed for twelve hours and refused to move down the shoot. This was perfectly fine by me. C-section, here I come. I would go through having my gut sliced open again in a minute if I could skip the whole baby part and just get the four days at an all-inclusive location that served you breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed, gave you a twenty-four hour morphine drip, and sent you packing with a thirty-day supply of Vicodin.
Before I get too excited thinking about legal narcotics without the ear-bleeding scream of a newborn, maybe I should go back to the night that got me into this mess. My horoscope that day should have been a warning of things to come: “You'll score a bunch of great computer gadgets and jewelry from your neighbors, who happen to die when you go into their house, shoot them, and take all their things.”
I don’t know what it should have been a warning of, but come on! Does that not have “bad omen” written all over it? The one and only time in my life I decide to have a one-night stand so I can finally give up the V-card, I get pregnant. I'm telling you, the universe hates me.
I was twenty years old and in my second year of college, well on my way to a degree in Business Administration. Aside from the constant ribbing from my best friend Liz, on the state of my virginity, life was good. Well, college student good. I didn't have VD, none of my friends had been roofied, and at the end of the semester, I had avoided needing to sell my organs to science to pay for food and pot.
Let me just say I do not condone illegal drug use in any way. Unless it's an all natural herb that doesn't make me feel guilty for eating an entire box of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch while watching hours of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. “Oh green water, oh that’s pretty, and a happy little tree right over there.” It also chills Liz out during finals so she isn't screaming and climbing the walls like a rabid howler monkey. Remember that whole “Hugs not Drugs” shit they tried to cram down our throats in high school? We fooled them. You don’t have to choose. You can totally have both and not die. But seriously, kids, don’t do drugs.
I remember that night fondly. And by fondly, I mean with bitter resentment toward all things alcoholic and with a penis.
2. Beer Pong May Cause Pregnancy
It was a Friday night and we were spending it the usual way - at a frat party with a bunch of drunken frat boys and sorority freaks of nature. I really don’t understand how Liz managed to drag me to these things week after week. These were not our people. Our people were back at the dorms listening to Pink Floyd, “The Darkside of the Moon” and watching The Wizard of Oz while arguing over whether or not the last season of Dawson’s Creek jumped the shark. (Pacey and Joey forever!) We did not belong with the crowd of trust fund babies that thought student loans had something to do with a foreign exchange student. As we made our way over to a portable bar on one side of the room, I could hear two completely wasted tools argue back and forth about who paid more for their Coach purse and who slept with the most guys last week. One of them claimed she was ashamed she brought the other to the party since she was wearing a pair of Louboutin’s that were “so last year”. These were the future leaders of our country, ladies and gentlemen. Christ, I felt like I was watching a live scene from "Heathers" ("I brought you to a Remington party and what's my thanks? It's on a hallway carpet. I got paid in puke."). Thankfully Liz interrupted me before I handed one of them a cup of liquid drainer.
"Oooh what about that one? He's cute. And he has good teeth,” she announced excitedly as she tipped her head towards a guy in a sweater vest manning the keg.
"Jesus Liz, he's not a horse," I moaned, rolling my eyes and taking a sip of luke warm beer.
"But you could ride him all night long if you play your cards right," she said with a creepy used car salesman wink and a nudge with her shoulder.
"I'm concerned about you Liz. I really think you spend entirely too much time thinking about my hymen. You’re secretly in love with me aren't you?"
"Don't flatter yourself," she replied distractedly as she scoped out more guys. "Come to think of it, I did bat for the other team in high school after one of Tom Corry’s Friday night parties. We never got past second base though. Someone knocked on the bathroom we were in and it suddenly occurred to me that I liked penis," she mused.
I stared at her profile like she had two heads. Or her hand in a vagina. Why is it that I’m just now finding out my best friend went through a lesbian phase? Every time I look at her now I'm going to picture vagina-hand. A little hand that looks like a who-ha chasing me around the house and watching me while I sleep. Vagina hand is always watching. Vagina hand sees you.
Liz looked beyond my shoulder and then leaned in closer. "Two tangos staring at us at your six."
I rolled my eyes again and sighed at the attempt Liz was making to be covert.