Our first child (a girl) is due this Saturday.
Preparations are finished, as best as I can tell, and now we're just waiting for the inevitable. The only problem is, the child is showing no inclination to come out. Far from being "engaged," she actually seems to be retreating into the upper reaches of the womb, kind of like Homer Simpson in his prenatal dream. We're assured that the baby's healthy and everything looks fine...she's just content to stay put.
Drastic times call for drastic measures (we have Christmas cards to send out, dammit) so I have begun employing a tactic used with questionable effectiveness by our troops in Panama. The Wife calls it "The Noriega Gambit."
It's pretty simple, really: in my best basso profundo, I croon obnoxious heavy metal songs straight into the womb. The strategy began with "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns 'n Roses, but we've since moved on to Megadeth's "In My Darkest Hour" and "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. So far, no dice. If this keeps up, I'll have to make good on my threat to pull out my old S.O.D. tapes and put some headphones directly on the fundus.
Birth is hell.
NOTE: In answer to the queries I've had about the prospect of blogging about my kid...only rarely will APCB discuss the antics of She Who Shall Not Be Named. If you're a parent, and that kind of thing works for you, knock yourself out. Personally, I can't help but cringe every time I read James Lileks detailing his "Gnat's" every move in excruciating detail. There's a whopper of a therapy bill in the making.
There's a whopper of a therapy bill in the making.or a career in performance art.
Bumpin' uglies can hasten labor.
So go do what ya gotta do.
We're with ya', brother
Dear Dad:
I'm using a meson-collapsing tachyon transmitter to beam this message back from the year 2031. I can't tell you how much orgone I'm having to burn to fuel this burst, but I hope it's worthwhile.
Dad, all that awful Hair Band drek you played at me in utero really fucked up my shit. I've had endless psychoanalysis, a brain transplant, crack therapy, you name it, but I'm still all messed up. When I close my eyes, I see Axel Rose doing his silly-ass snake dance. It's your fault, daddy!
I'm asking you now to please, please stop playing that dreadful Sleaze Metal claptrap and throw on some classic Marilyn Manson, or at least some pre-Kid-Rock Fountains of Wayne. They're, how do you say it back then, the shizzy-nit?
It's only fair to warn you that making this change as I've asked will result in a temporal discontinuity, and your timeline will terminate abruptly in entropic collapse. But my timeline should be just fine, and I'm your daughter dammit, so suck it up daddy!
Thanks ever so much, and Merry Christmas!
Love,
[NAME DELETED BY SCHROEDINGER EFFECTS]
That's it. Time for some Spice Girls.
Teach you to call Black Sabbath a "Hair Band." Uppity little fetus.
I'd like to thank everybody for coming out to the Perfectly Cromulent Bar tonight, my name is Pete, and I'm your host. Uppity Little Fetus is backstage, and she'll be out just as soon as we iron out some minor technical difficulties. Thanks for being patient...
<click> OK, it's off, where is she?
She's locked herself in her dressing womb. She says she won't come out.
Deep-Fried Christ on a Stick! Why not?
It may be for the better, she's not real coherent right now. It's either something about brown M&Ms, the quality of the tequila, or Erwin Schroedinger's dancing snakes.
Well, get her out here. If you thought this crowd looked ugly before..
Yes? what?
Um. It still does.
Alright, she leaves us no choice. Play that 8-track of George Foreman singing Grill Power, that ought to smoke her out.
Just remember Pete, Low tones are omnidirectional, high tones are unidirectional. She may just be getting the neodisco part of Axel.
Kid is due Saturday; cool. So, you'll be avaiable to watch football on Sunday, right?