ME VS. BABY: WINNER TAKE ALL

I hate kids. Okay, maybe hate isn't exactly the correct term. I shouldn’t say that I hate them. I'm just completely disgusted by them, and the poop in their pants, and their goo-covered fingers, and their bizarre, crooked, no-toothed grins.

If by chance we ever meet, and you happen to bring your kid along don’t be upset if show very little interest at all in it. Don’t take it personally. It's not that I think your kid in particular is gross as much as it is that I think all kids are gross.

There’s a reason I paid a doctor to take a scalpel to my nuts up in my early twenties and it sure as hell wasn't because I adore tiny, useless bags of chubandspitandcrap.

On the off chance that you find my dislike of wide-eyed, foul smelling, sticky-fingered human beings confusing, let me take this opportunity to at least explain myself.

One day my wife and I stopped by her aunt’s house briefly to say hello and get a good look at the new addition to the family.

"The babies here! Come over and see the baby!"

“Ohmygawd the baby will be here for a few hours! Hurry up and come look!"

"Baby! Come see the baby! Come see now!"

“HOLY SHIT! YOU’VE GOTTA SEE THIS MOTHERFUCKING BABY!”

These are the kind of phone calls my wife gets on a regular basis and believe it or not she’s actually excited when she gets them.

Personally, I don't get it.

The kid doesn't walk. The kid can't talk. The kid can't sing me a song, or tell me a story. It can't chat with me about comics, or music, or make useless small talk about the weather, or pretend to be interested in any of the mostly pointless nonsense that spews from my mouth. The kid can’t really do anything other than poop. It can poop and it can drool, and when it’s done doing that it can poop and drool some more - right on top of the previous poop and drool.

Maybe I am missing something or maybe my soul is too black and my brain too jaded, but babies in general seem pretty damn useless.

I don't know.

I guess it's just me. It has to be, right? Why else would there be so many people on the planet - you know, other than the fact that people really like sex and really hate to cover their dongs in latex?

Even if it is, that doesn't necessarily make me wrong.

Call me when you can help me with my taxes at the end of the year. Until then, good luck with that whole diarrhea diaper thing.

Anyway, I was sitting on the couch next to my wife’s cousin – who was also the father of the little bundle of joy - and he has the squirming, fleshy creep show in his arms.

Did I forget to mention that he’d just announced to the room that the kid had in fact, shit her britches?

Wonderful.

With this bit of knowledge in my head, I notice that the baby is looking right at me. She was starring at me with a peculiar sort of smile on her face. She's was looking me over and scanning me for weaknesses. The little jerk was planning something. Something flashed behind those dead blue eyes – inspiration maybe – undoubtedly nefarious in nature.

She knew exactly what she was going to do.

She knew that the shimmery dollop of slobber on her mouth and the bulge of compacted crap ballooning her diaper was freaking me out.

Oh yeah, she knew.

With a bubbly, baby food smelling gurgle, she began crawling toward me. In no time at all the horizontal crawl turned vertical. Suddenly she was climbing up me.

Within seconds she was a mere three inches from my face, leaning wobbly on my shoulder on her stubby legs. Her blank eyes latched onto mine. Her mouth opened and a river of spittle rolled over her chin. Her soaked lips curled into a crooked smile. Here expression was undeniable. Without ever saying a word she was telling me, "I've got you now, you uncomfortable pathetic loser."

And she was right.

The river of mucus drool was hanging perilously from her chin, swaying back and forth as she wobbled on uneven legs and glistening in the light from the window behind us. I had to get rid of it. I needed it removed from my field of vision before my brain exploded inside my skull.

Breathing heavily, I snagged the sleeve of her little baby suit and used it to wipe her face clean. "You um…you got a little something there, don't ya? Yeah, let me help you out with that."

Mission accomplished.

While I felt slightly less queasy, the poop remained, encased in her diaper and smeared against her baby-soft butt cheeks. I could smell it. It was pungent and it was foul and it was permeating the air. A crash, or a call, or something drew the attention of her father for the moment. My mind was too preoccupied with the bouncing bag of crab dangling from my shoulder to know for sure.

He stood from the couch. “Crap. Can you watch her for a minute?”

I wanted to grab him by the wrist, toss him to the floor and kick him square in the scones! What was he thinking? I wanted to watch his kid about as much as I wanted to sit though a weekend long retrospective of the collected films of Michael Bay!

The kid’s hand moved unexpected to my face and I froze. She was pawing at my cheek and poking me in the eye with the tips of her sticky fingers.

The balls on this kid!

The unmitigated gall!

She was blatantly invading my personal space! She was touching and slapping and, and looking me right in the eyes and doing it with a devilish grin so devilish that Beelzebub himself would have blushed.

The nerve!

The absolute moxie!

I was moments from screaming when her father returned to the couch, scooped her up and pulled her away. He tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to the next room to clean the feces from her flesh.

She was smiling at me the entire time.

While I can’t be for sure, I think she might have even given me the finger.

The audacity.

I don't get babies.

I never have and I never will.

I don’t understand the allure.

They are essentially human beings who mumble, cry and crap their own pants. I don’t even particularly care for human beings that don’t do any of that stuff.

You know what they call homeless guys on the street who do the same thing?

They call them crazy people.

As a society we’ve made it a point to catch crazy people and toss them into mental institutions, and deservedly so.

It should never be acceptable for human beings of any age, to stew in their own still-warm feces – even if they happen to be involved in some sort of feces-stewing competition or something.

Speaking of which, if such a thing exists, it really shouldn’t.

Please don’t let it exist.