Hey, Everyone! I'm SO NOT PREGNANT and NEVER WILL BE.

   The concept of birthing children is one that I can only hope will forever remain entirely foreign to me. I have several friends who recently had children, one of whom experienced the typical full out 'squeeze a really fat meatball sandwich ( and I'm thinking one of those ginormous ones that you only see on tv commercials) down a canal that isn't even as big as a Pringles can'.  Seriously, in the first X-Files movie, "Fight the Future", when all of the bodies are frozen on the spaceship and the aliens are all gushing around in their transparent stomachs? Um. I think I've seen that movie too often, because all I can think of when I see a pregnant belly is huge purple veins creeping their way up until they encompass your face and a squawking, screeching alien with an elongated face bursts out of your vagina with superhuman strength.

    So we've established that I don't want children- and this is a fact well known and vetted by every single person I know. I could be a great mom, I'm sure, with my need to take care of people and deep desire to be a good person. I'd never let the kid starve, never forget to buy them clothes, and probably allow them to start their education of science early by watching countless reruns of the original Star Trek ("No, honey, we don't have biobeds or transporters yet, but if you want to invent them for Mommy, I'd be happy to milk the benefits of your hard work and transport myself to Maui every time you took a nap/went to school/once you were able to be left alone at home.").

   But my views on children as an entity? Well. I love them (you guys, you know that), but as a single person I like to think I have a view that my friends who are parents don't, and I can dredge up these entertaining observations (all entirely satirical, I swear. I could go to Walmart and observe enough there, so I would never use my friends as fodder). But dear god, depending entirely on the direction their parents take them...well, some grow up to be like so many of the men I've dated, and trust me when I say that someone really, really needs to go back in time with a therapist and fix that all now.

   I also realize that I was a child, once upon a time. I know I didn't just pop into existence magically, nor did I come from a stork, a bubble, or a flower pot (Seriously, Anne Geddes? Flowers?). I probably put my mother through a pretty grotesque torture, but I don't feel in any way guilty about that as she had my sister five years before that and she knew pretty damn well what she was getting into with the second one (that being me, of course). So I appreciate that the process is pretty selfless, and gosh, fucking painful (as far as I'm told), so any child should be incredibly grateful to exist after that.  If not, there should be some sort of pill that a person takes to simulate the pain of labor (including the squeezing of the fifty-pound inmate down a narrow escape tunnel) so that anyone who isn't gets to see why they bloody well should be.

     I spent the afternoon with a lovely friend of mine and her little baby, Soylent Green (name was changed to protect the identity of the cute little devil). It was, as always, incredibly enjoyable, because we did things that people my age (I'd say 'our age' but she's younger than I) do, like drinking coffee and clipping coupons. Grocery shopping with her is like an adventure since we use coupons, and I'm always very happy to tag along to stock my cupboards with copious amounts of meat.

    Baby Soylent (Yes, he IS made out of people!) was pretty quiet the entire time, which is fantastic. My friend Shirl (I'm just grabbing the names out of the movie Soylent Green, folks. Watch it.) was able to feed him on the go, pacify him with the shiny new Nuk, and continue to find wonderful bargains at every place we went to. Not every child is like that, so I feel that she (and I by association, as I'm pretty much attached to her hip most days) is very lucky. It's pretty awesome, as her other child is two, and while adorable, can reach decibles that even Ozzy Osborne never could. On those occasions (and Shirl, I love you. You know I love you and little Olga dearly) I feel that surge of gratitude that not only did I not have to squeeze anything out of any canal anywhere, but I also don't have to live day after day wondering when my child will at last scream loud enough to break the sound barrier and bring down a plane passing overhead.

      And as much as I talk, we know my offspring would probably become politicians (*rimshot*), so there's that favor I'm possibly doing for the world. How's that, world?

    They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth. They can...if you hit them in the goolies with a cricketbat for fourteen hours. 
                                                            ~ Jo Brand