Wednesday, November 09, 2005

I really cannot be blamed. Clearly, no good mother would allow someone as irresponsible as myself around her larvae. Even cute children frighten me. I have a pathological fear of twins1. Never mind that the child thrusted into my hands today was doubtfully a fully dues-paying genetic member of the humanity club. I always warn people visiting the house that I have a cat in case they don’t like the things. I think the same courtesy should be paid to those visiting new parents. I went along to a friend of a friend’s house unknowingly walking into an ugly baby booby trap. There it was on the kitchen table. The centre of the room. The centre of attention. We all had to stare at it and make our comments. I think I stared too long. Or maybe my mouth was agape an inch too wide. Truthfully my first reaction was to throw the rest of my drink at it, and chuck it out the window before it flew out of its container or pram or whatever you call it and eat someone’s face. Despite this, I remained calm and repeated to myself that indeed this was a human child and the object of adoration of these two sad and self-deluded couple. We sat and chatted and it was nearly two seconds before the conversation returned to the mongoloid that was now drooling on his mother’s shoulder (my guess was that it was trying to digest her like flies do). It was explained that the birth had been a difficult one. From what I understood of the explanation, apparently there was trouble with the shoulders and they had to use a toilet plunger to pull the child from the mother. They didn’t call it a toilet plunger, but trust me, by the description these people’s pride and joy was brought into this world by a doctor and a toilet plunger. The result was the child’s head was elongated like an egg. I had some more bad news for these people. I don’t think its head went back to the normal shape despite medical assurances to the contrary. I kept checking to see if the eyebrows were lined up. By some unseen signal, feeding time came. I was volunteered to do this task. I was handed the warmed bottle and the changeling that this family had been tricked into taking. It was sweaty and squirmed like a drowning earthworm. All my willpower was focused on keeping my expression blank. I made sure that my eyes did not betray fear or my lips did not curl as the smell of diaper filth hit me like a slap. When the ordeal was all over I excused myself to the bathroom. I stared in the mirror and pushed the trauma into my gut certain that the experience had made me sterile.


1) Obviously, one of them has to be evil.

1 comment:

  1. Something to make you cry in the shower about!

    ReplyDelete