Say Uncle

Hilarious. Make the guy uncomfortable with newborns hold the new kid. Ok! Fine! I'll do it. I won't like it, but I'll do it if I HAVE to, but that's it. Once. After that: no more holding.

I don't deal with children under 6, furthermore I don't INTEND to deal with children under 6. That's right: I'm an ogre. No, I'm a man. No, I'm an ogre. Either way - they're purely ornamental, right?  Bring them to me when they're strong enough to hold a BB gun and wear a life vest. Until then - they make me too nervous. That's right - I'll take my chances with an armed 6yr-old over a newborn that could cry any minute and make me feel all guilty and weird.

We've got a hospital room full of women over here flipping the tiny thing around like its a football and driving it crazy and it makes me anxious. As if blasting out into the world with a bunch of people hollering at you, blood and guts everywhere, crying, and wailing isn't bad enough - somebody immediately hits you hard enough to make you cry, then 400 people you dont know show up and insist on handing you around in midair for the next 72hrs straight. 

Take me back to the womb, please, Mister. 

To make matters worse - there's a 50/50 chance somebody stuck a vacuum cleaner on your head, then sucked so hard it squished your skull all out of shape. You think THAT didn't hurt? Sweet Lord. "Welcome to being a human! Hurry up out of there, or we'll smoosh your skull." It's your first taste of the world telling you you're too fat and slow. Learn to love it.

Plus, you can't think much, grip anything, walk, talk or see straight and what do you have to live on? Milk that somebody gives you anytime they feel like you may be hungry? If I had to wait on Tyler to feed me when she thought I might be hungry, I'd be dead. Or skinny. I don't know which is worse.

It's amazing any kid makes it out of the hospital alive - what with all that hard floor rushing up to meet you.  That's what's underfoot in the hospital - basically concrete. 4,000 sick and infirm people, newborns, the elderly, bodily fluids skeeting around right and left, half the chairs have wheels on them and you pave the entire place in a slick hard substance?  The emperor has no clothes. Soylent Green is PEOPLE, and when I'm 80 please don't store me in any place sheeted in hip-crushing rubberized concrete. 

Know what happens when you get old? YOU DIE. Fine by me I guess, but I know a caretaker who loves me wouldn't let me slowly break apart over time in a series of high-impact falls.  Make me a tent out on the front lawn. I'll take a tree fort in your backyard. Anything, at all - please just don't put concrete floors in my bedroom for crying out loud. 

Back at the hospital I held the kid, anxiously, until Tyler saw my lips moving and the beads of sweat glistening feverishly on my forehead and she finally said "well, I guess I better get Jimmy on home now", made her apologies and led me out to the car.

It's a good thing, too. My imagination was about to spin completely out of control.