To Paraphrase W.C. Fields...

Photo: conorwithonen, Flickr Creative Commons

I don't like children. It's a simple fact. When they're young, they cry and beg and lie and want too much personal attention. When they're medium aged, middle school, they smell bad and hate themselves and others. As teens they're vapid and boring and they still have the lingering odors and rage of pubescence. Also, they wear too much Axe body spray. That shit is horrible.

Of course adults aren't any better. In fact, they're often worse because they think they should be treated like adults, or at least my equals, which they rarely deserve to be, but at least I'm not pressured by society to look at a fat middle-aged man and say, "Oh, how cute. Look at those rolls!"

I've learned to accept my status as a father and to at least tolerate my own son, but I really hope it ends there. I'm not sure I have enough space in my memory that I'm willing to spare to store more names and personalities. I think if an accident happens, and they do happen, that I shall refer to any forthcoming offspring of mine as "The Others." and lock them away in the spare bedroom, or maybe in the crawl space under the house if they annoy me. Individually, I'll refer to them as "An Other," although I really doubt I'll have much reason to refer to them personally, unless there's only one of course.

I once kicked our cat out of the house permanently for playing with the blinds while I was asleep. I'd do that to a stupid baby, too. Of course, I admit there's the possibility that I could be impressed by a new child. If this spawn of mine managed to stay in my relative good graces long enough to be a toddler, I guess I could be bothered enough to take this thing out into the middle of the Cohutta Wilderness, where I would abandon it and wait. If its genes and luck were good enough and it emerged from the woods in the next few days, a dead, partially eaten trout clutched in its tiny fists, I think I could learn to love it. Maybe.

This is in no way a veiled hint that my wife is pregnant. At least I hope not. Feticide is illegal. Stupid fascists.