I have come to find out that the only leverage you can get on a kid is doing something that he’s too young to do, and since ten-year-olds these days are already refinancing their second mortgages and maintaining better 401(k)s than I do, the best way to stay ahead of the game is to do things that they legally can’t, like going under the needle and drinking a High Life with your breakfast. You have to find a way in with kids, and if they’re old enough to figure out what a total loser you are, you have to do it immediately. Danger and contraband are the currency of youth, and the less similar to their responsible, bill-paying parents you seem, the better you’ll get along with your surrogate children. That’s why when Auntie Sam comes over to babysit she brings dirty needles and a ComEdison disconnect notice in her purse; they’re putty in my hands after I tell them what it’s like to run out of toilet paper and how to disguise your voice when you accidentally answer a collections call. The fact that I live somewhere else and am not fussing at them to clean up their Legos is usually enough to hit the cool-points jackpot, but when I need a boost, I tell them about the one time I got into a bar brawl. Or that time I got shot. (I never got shot.)
If your idiot friends start procreating while you’re still trying to get on the VIP list at the club every week, you definitely have to learn baby talk. Not “goo goo, gah gah,” you asshole, you need to learn what “Montessori” means. Seriously, you better verse yourself in home births and butt paste, because gone are the days when your girl has time to listen to you whine about that one dude with the nice car who never called you after he teabagged you in the parking lot behind a bowling alley. You are going to be talking about baby poop. All the time. Its smell, its consistency, its color, its length, its taste, whatever. Prepare to let your life be taken over by infant diarrhea. And while we’re at it, you better get accustomed to looking at some giant, lactating boobs, because your breastfeeding friends will have zero qualms about unhooking their flesh-colored front-loading bras right in the middle of your dinner. And don’t worry about being a pervert for staring, because it might be the least sexual event you will ever see in your life. All that rooting around and the squishing noises. When Anna was in town when the girls were six weeks old, she was partially naked half the time and like 80 percent disoriented, and I had to learn quick how to conduct a conversation without trying to gauge the size and shape of my best friend’s exposed areolas. But even if public boobs freak you out, you won’t even care, because every time that tiny alien screams its little head off demanding food or a diaper or a change of scenery, all you’ll want is for her to get those jugs out and shut that noise up.
OH MY GOD THE MONEY. You thought what you had to spend when the parents got married was bad? Well, hold on to your prepaid Visa card, friend, because that was only the beginning. At least weddings happen only one time. Babies have birthdays every year. Three times a month I’m standing in Target squinting to read the instructions on some inappropriate toy or another, trying to figure out whether it makes too much noise or requires too much skill or comes equipped with too many parts a little kid could choke on and die from. Only to then fuck up the wrapping paper and spill vodka on the card the kid can’t even read yet when I get home. You will need to take out a monster loan. Or if your credit is messed up, you better start waiting tables during all your single-person free time.
You won’t mind, though, because your exhausted BFF will smile so hard and be so grateful that you picked up a pack of onesies on your way over to regale her with stories from your super-exciting, STD-dodging single-girl life. By the end of the first month, you will be seriously considering signing up for the Babies “R” Us e-mail list. Because baby stuff is cute, and seeing a little diarrhea-soaked human being dressed in a perfectly matched outfit that you bought for him is an incredible feeling, especially if he is too young to tell you how much he hates it and how all the other kids at school get their bibs from Gucci. You won’t be able to walk by a pastel display at Walmart without dumping half of it into your cart. You’ll coo at little monkeys and bears and marvel at the tininess of little frilly socks, spending your way to eviction because the asshole you sat next to in US history junior year couldn’t figure out how to properly use a condom, and you will love it.
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Try not to feel too salty when going through your bank statements. (Or just be like me and never even open them.) Just keep in mind that eventually those kids will be old enough to drive you around and send you cards and look after your cats while you’re in Florida for the winter. And couplefriends with babyfriends are the best, because they always have extra stuff just lying around for your pitiful single ass to mooch off them. No way in hell I’m going to Sam’s Club; that’s why I keep smug marrieds around! I haven’t bought my own toilet paper in three years. I just wait until one of them is like, “Come eat dinner with us, you lonely piece of shit!” and while the fish sticks are heating up, Mom and Dad pack me suitcases full of two-ply extra-strong kid-proof toilet paper and economy-size bags of animal crackers. The friends with deep freezers and large pantries are even better, because you can walk out of there with nineteen individually wrapped chicken breasts, four bottles of toilet bowl cleaner, one-thousand-count boxes of Swiffer cloths, a ten-pound bag of frozen shrimp, and six pints of strawberries. Who needs Peapod? People with kids are so exhausted they don’t have time to notice that one of the forty-six boxes of Kleenex they just purchased is missing. They literally have no idea what is in their houses at any given moment. If something is gone or broken they’ll just assume one of the kids did it. You think I’m kidding, but the last time I bought Ziploc bags, Gladware containers, Handi Wipes, sponges, dish towels, and Q-tips was, ummm, never. That’s what (baby)friends are for.
This year, on my days off, I’m trying stay up super late (it’s 10:37 at night right now—who am I, a rapper?!) and sleep as late as I possibly can. Now that a lot of my friends are having babies, the only recourse I have against feeling like a huge dork for still trying to maneuver my way through my first real romance is doing all the things those mother hens can’t do anymore: I curse at the top of my lungs in the solitude of my apartment! Eat pizza for breakfast! Take several long, uninterrupted showers every day! Turn my phone off! Watch R-rated movies! Poop in blissed-out peace! Buy unpasteurized cheese! And pointy furniture! Leave my vibrator in the dish drain after I wash it! Never ever watch public television! But also never turn the television OFF! Get some mercury-laden sushi! Spend an entire day reading under the covers! Go out for drinks! Throw away all of my bite-size foods! Make sand castles in the cat litter box! Never buy any fresh fruit! Use my outside voice inside! Take a bunch of Tylenol! And a bunch of Advil! And don’t forget: DRINK A SHITLOAD OF COLD MEDICINE!!!
The Real Housewife of Kalamazoo