Juswaytil

Indian fire god? No. Demon lord? Maybe. French delicacy? Hardly. The “juswaytil tribe” is a group of disgruntled parents (often ones with more than one child) who prey on new parents with soul-dampening proclamations meant to diminish any fleeting optimism they may have at any given moment. “Ojuswaytil” is their cry; an admonition from a truly lost group of souls. Ojuswaytil is a word that forms the beginning of a dreaded sentence. They haunt optimistic parents with sentences like these:

New unassuming parent: “Little Timmy got sick yesterday, I was up all night!”
Old, grizzled veteran parent of 5: “Ojuswaytil Little Timmy rears back and throws up directly into your goddamned ears 10 times a day for an entire year…”

New baby-faced innocent parent: “Little Suzie fell and skinned her knee at daycare! Oh, how she cried!”
Grouchy, war-torn parent of 4: “Ojuswaytil Little Suzie runs into a moving fan belt running at 200 miles per hour while her brother shoots rockets at her!”

New, timid, doe-eyed little parent: “Poor little Jackie boy cut his first tooth the other day. He was crying all night!”
Been-around-the-block parent: “Ojuswaytil Jackie runs head first into a time machine and all of his precious little new teeth come flying back at you from 1934!”

Do any of these things happen? I would think not; and that is the real problem here. For some reason, unsuspecting new parents get bombarded by killjoy experienced parents at every turn. The dreaded “Ojuswaytil” is a horrible way of saying “You may be suffering now, but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” What benefit does that give the poor, sleep-deprived new parent? “Hey, I’m having trouble here, do you have any examples of how completely miserable I will be in the near future? You do?!? Wow, thanks, I was hoping I could pour some more despair into my overflowing glass of darkness!” Don’t try to get involved in their bitter game of one-upmanship; the juswaytils are too experienced and wily. Just back away and admit that it must have been terrible when 4-month old Steven opened his own chest cavity and held out his still-beating heart while pooping acid and vomiting rivers of raw sewage. You will never come up with something worse. More examples:

“Ojuswaytil little Timmy reaches into his diaper and proceeds to brush your teeth with his own poop!”
“Ojuswaytil tiny Hortence roundhouse-kicks your kneecap triggering a teary night of icepacks and muffled curses thrown into the unforgiving night.”
“Ojuswaytil baby Anna renounces Christ and begins bleeding from the stigmata signs.”
“Ojuswaytil sweetie-pie Bobo slices your Achilles Tendon with a broken shard of glass from a beer bottle that he smashed over your head while wrestling over some Tinker Toys and a Tickle-Me-Bastard!”

I’ve seen this all before; trust me (and who names their kid Bobo? So many unanswered questions…). These proclamations will usually be followed by a prolonged drag off of a cigarette and a knowing grunt of laughter. Beware the entrenched parent, so buried in bitterness and baby food that they have lost the light. Their reality has been twisted into some dark version of Earth with violent little baby Gods and Goddesses terrorizing them daily. I hope they find the right path again, I really do. Just go to a baby shower sometime with your newborn and see what happens. Go on, I dare you. The baby shower is a common campground for the juswaytil tribe. It will be like running the gauntlet through a graveyard of ghostly apparitions all trying to kill their parents in some fashion. They set you up with faint praise of your cute baby, and then they hit you with the sledgehammer:

“Ojuswaytil they turn 18, then you will be down on your knees begging Satan to end your life as your teenager(s) fly around the yard with flaming pitchforks!” (Really? I should just sit here and wait 18 years for that? What should I do while I’m waiting? Look for new friends? Good idea.)

“Ojuswaytil you try to bake a cake and suddenly your 8 month old explodes out from inside the CAKE you JUST BAKED!!!”

“Ojuswaytil you get bitten by that wonderful bundle of joy who suddenly has newly grown viper’s teeth. Because that’s what happens; you know: They. Grow. The. Teeth. Of. Vipers. Beware the ides of March! Beware the Vipers of Similac! Woe is the lord of the castle, for she will be struck by venomous stings as painful as thousands of needlepoints thrown earthward from the hand of God!” *trailing off into Old English scripture and eventually burned at the stake as a heretic*

Look, this is all common knowledge. I could go on all day here. I just want you to take a moment and appreciate the friends who don’t do this to you; who don’t work you into a panic over events that haven’t even happened yet. Enjoy your time with your little one or ones. There will be plenty of time to “wait” for terrible things to happen; that is unless you are stricken by the wrath of Luther the baby-God. Juswaytil you see how awful he is…