Anyway, having a kid is an excellent exercise in perspective. Because it teaches you to embrace the horror and indignity of life. You simply have no other choice.
Take, for example, the first time that you take your child to the community pool. You’re self-consciously trying to still appear hip in front of your thin, childless neighbor, who probably got more than two hours of sleep, when you notice that your child’s ass seems to be exploding. Then you realize with horror that your husband failed to put a swimming diaper on your toddler, and so now the real diaper is soaking up all of the pool water and expanding like a giant mushroom cloud, and your kid is looking at you like, “What the fuck is happening to my junk?!” and you’re all, “DON’T PANIC. Walk slowly toward the bathroom,” but the kid is all, “Pick me up! I AM BEING EATEN BY MY OWN DIAPER,” and so you do, but then the pressure makes the diaper seams burst, and now you’re covered with this gel stuff from inside the diaper which, it turns out, is a bluish, crystal-like jelly. And you’re repulsed and fascinated all at the same time, and you run to the bathroom, but the crystal-jelly stuff is leaking out behind you like a trail of bread crumbs, and the lifeguard is giving you the stink-eye, and you finally get to the bathroom, but the gel inside the diaper is continuing to expand. And so as soon as you yank your kid’s suit off, the diaper rips open from the sheer internal pressure and lands with a splat and the diaper jelly sprays all. Over. Everything. And right at that exact moment, your thin, childless neighbor walks breezily in, and then backs up against the wall in shock as she sees you bending over in the middle of the bathroom, splattered with blue diaper filling and trying desperately to use wads of ineffective brown paper towels to clean the (probably cancerous) diaper jelly off a naked toddler. And you try to smile at her reassuringly, as if this is the sort of thing that happens all the time, and you consider standing up to explain casually that this is really all your husband’s fault, but before you can straighten up your child sees your giant boob perched precariously at the edge of your bathing suit and she punches it and it falls out of the top of your bathing suit. And then your neighbor backs silently out of the bathroom, like she’s stumbling away from a murder scene, and you scream after her, ”YOU CANNOT RUN FROM ME. BEHOLD! THIS. IS. YOUR. FUTURE!”
Get ready.
That sort of thing happens all the damn time.
I can assure you, it was traumatizing for all of us.
Phone Conversation I Had with My Husband After I Got Lost for the Eighty Thousandth Time ME: Hello?
VICTOR: Where are you?! You’ve been gone an hour.
ME: I’m lost. Don’t yell at me.
VICTOR: You went to get milk, dude. You’ve been to that store a hundred times.
ME: Yes, but not at night. Everything looks all strange and I couldn’t see the signs. And I guess I must’ve taken a wrong street and I’ve been driving aimlessly, hoping for something to look familiar.
VICTOR: How can you get lost every damn time you leave the house?
ME: I don’t even think I’m in Texas anymore.
VICTOR: Motherfu—
ME: DON’T YELL AT ME.
VICTOR: I’m not yelling at you. Just turn on the GPS and put in our address.
ME: I left it at home.
VICTOR: What the hell is wrong with you?!
ME: You said you wouldn’t yell at me!
VICTOR: That was before you left the GPS at home. I BOUGHT IT EXPRESSLY BECAUSE OF YOU.
ME: Can’t you just tell me how to get home?
VICTOR: How am I supposed to help you get home, Jenny? I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.
ME: Okay . . . there are a lot of trees. And bushes. Or they might be horses. It’s too dark to tell.
VICTOR: Oh, yeah, I know exactly where you are.
ME: Really?
VICTOR: No. You’re someplace where there may or may not be bushes. How is that helpful?
ME: Hell. I need to find a street sign.
VICTOR: You NEED to remember to put the GPS in your car.
ME: No. I’m not using it anymore.
VICTOR: Why not?!
ME: It’s trying to kill me.
VICTOR: [stunned silence]
ME: Remember last week when I had to go into town and I got the driving instructions from MapQuest and you made me take the GPS as a backup, but then halfway there the GPS is all, “Turn left now,” and I’m all, “No. MapQuest says to go straight,” and it’s like, “TURN LEFT NOW,” and I’m all, “No way, bitch,” and then she’s sighing at me like she’s frustrated and she keeps saying, “Recalculating,” in this really judgy, condescending way, and then she’s all, “TURN LEFT NOW!” And then I’m all freaked out, so I turn left exactly like she says and then she’s all, “Recalculating. Recalculating,” and I’m like, “I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID TO DO. WHAT’S WITH THE TONE, WHORE?”
VICTOR: You’re not using the GPS because you don’t appreciate the tone of the robot?