ya, babies.

So i'm sitting here fighting off a head cold. It sucks because i've got to shake the fucker by midday tomorrow when i'm doing a reading of George Elliot to a wedding party. By the same token, however, it justifies me locking myself in my tiny room to avoid the screaming chaos right outside my door.

The kid is here.

My stepbother's one-and-a-half-year old, Luke, here to spend time with his grandmother...My stepmom.

I hear a loud whining scream, and then I hear the parents, "Did you just bite your finger? Did you just bite your finger? Aw, poor Luke, he bit his finger while eating food. Did you bite your finger Luke?"

Creeping Jesus, how stupid can you get?

Maybe i've reached a threshold with babies, having just spent an entire week in Sandbanks (Eastern Ontario's vacation paradise, if by "paradise" you mean endless kilometers of sandy beach coated with young families) with my stepmom and her two kids --who both have babies-- their spouses, and my dad.

Around the dinner table at the cottage they ask me why i'm so quiet.

"Look around the table" I say, "besides my noticeably dark complexion what makes me different from you?"

They can't figure it out.

"I'm the only one here who hasn't had a kid. What can I contribute to the conversation when its all anybody talks about?"

In fact, I could contribute to the conversation with things like: Your children should be institutionalized, they exhibit all the signs; they're megalomaniacs, kleptomaniacs, retarded, sociopaths, egomaniacs, suffer from narcolepsy and attention deficit disorder, they're gluttons, they have zero bowel control, they're narcissistic, they have both avoidance and dependence personality disorders, and they have two volume settings, "Loud" and "Off".

I could say these things but then I would be faced with that infuriating sanctimonious smirk that new parents put on right before they say, "When you have a child, you'll understand."

That may be so, but I plan on having a mute.

Okay, they're cute. But could you imagine if they weren't? The human race would come to a dead stop. Even then some babies look like Mick Jagger. But not to the parents, never to the parents. To the parents they have given birth the most breathtakingly beautiful creature in the world.

And not just beautiful, smart too. Smart enough that parents have to repeat everything they say to their baby two or three times, while it's rummaging around in it's diaper for hidden doodles.

The voice goes up three octaves to a high-pitched whine, "Do we like corn? Do we like corn? Do we like it? Huh, Do we, do we?"
"BGAAAKLL"
"Oh! He said we do. Did we just say we do like corn? We said we do like corn didn't we? Didn't we?"

No wonder the kid is so fucked up, he thinks he's you.

And there it is. Maybe it's not the babies that are the problem, because the only thing that trumps their annoyance value is their parents.