"Everything's Coming Up Babies!"

Mr. and Mrs. Freemantle get the good news over the phone that they have been chosen to appear on a new reality show called “Everything’s Coming Up Babies!” The show deals with the months leading up to the birth of a new baby (or babies). Part of the process involves a home interview with the happy couple, who at this time are 7 months along and expecting quadruplets. Mrs. Freemantle, Judy, is quite large and very uncomfortable. Mr. Freemantle, Ray, is beaming happily and excited about the prospect of becoming a father. The camera crew and an interviewer have just arrived at the Freemantle home to interview Ray for the show.

“Testing. Testing. One, two three. Testing. OK for you? Good. OK Ray, we are just going to ask you some basic questions about you and Judy. Answer however you see fit, ok? Real informal.” The interviewer finishes testing the microphone and hooks it up to Ray’s shirt collar.

“No problem,” says Ray as he settles into his favorite chair.

A voice from behind him says “Counting down. Ready in 3…2…1…”

“Thanks for taking some time to talk to us, Ray. How did you and Judy meet? What was your first date like?”

“We had a rocky start to our relationship. I admit I wasn’t the nicest guy to be around. Between the heroin and the drinking, I was a real ‘gloomy Gus’, if you will. One time, Judy came over to my apartment with some takeout food for dinner, and I got so enraged by the sight of her I punched her in the neck so hard her throat collapsed and her Adam’s apple exploded. Boy was I embarrassed! I was so high when she walked in the door I thought she was a Panda Bear coming to put me in jail for concealing a cartoon hammer. She wasn’t a Panda Bear though, she was Judy, and I had to make a call to 911 pretty quick! That was our first date and we always remember it to this day with a fond smile.”

“CUT!” The director’s voice booms out over a loudspeaker as the interviewer leans in to talk to Ray. “Ray, ah, you want to try to cool it with the drug and violence talk? This is a family show.”

“You wanted to know about our first date!” Ray protested.

“Yes, I know, but try to clean up your stories. Consider your audience, OK? Now, why don’t you tell us about the night you proposed to Judy,” the interviewer says as she leans a little closer to Ray squinting as though she is interviewing the Prime Minister of England on national TV.

“Wow, what an amazing evening that was. We finished our ‘Moons over My Hammy’ at our local Denny’s and she was like totally constipated. I started making fun of her backed up shitter and then she eventually gave in and started laughing about it too. That’s when she noticed a ring floating in her Diet Doctor Pepper. I had the waitress put it in there! She fished it out and started weeping all over the place. Needless to say, I was disgusted with her public display of weakness. After disciplining her at the table in front of the Denny’s patrons, I asked her to marry me. She initially said ‘No’ through a lot of tears and whining, but I suggested she say ‘Yes’. By ‘suggested’ I mean I silently stared at her clenching and unclenching my jaw until she said ‘Yes’, and the rest is romance history!”

“Um, ah,” the reporter nervously shuffles her notes. “So, Quadruplets! Tell me your reaction when you found out you were going to be having four babies at once!”

“Well, I was enthusiastic; maybe overly so! I was completely naked, of course, and I was just doing a little jig singing, ‘I’m Gonna Knock You Out’ over and over again until I had all of that nervous energy out of my system. Then when the prostitute left our pool house, I found Judy and let her know that I was finally OK with all of this, despite my initial reaction of vomiting all over her newly-planted bed of hydrangeas. I also kicked her kneecap off. Initially, mind you. Plus, we found the kneecap in the hydrangeas, which was fortunate.”

“CUT!”

An exasperated Ray throws his hands up in a helpless gesture as the interviewer confers with the director. The interviewer returns and says, “Ray, we are having a big problem with your choice of language. Please clean up your act for TV, ok?”

“I thought I was being clean,” Ray mutters to himself as he nods an agreement and the interview continues.

“Has your wife had many physical symptoms of pregnancy? How involved have you been?”

“Oh me oh my, those babies have certainly been active! Those little bas- Those little guys have really been moving around. The way they have been kicking in there, I think we have a whole soccer team in there! Hopefully they aren’t Argentinean, am I right? They are really flipping around like a bunch of little nutfuckers!”

“CUT!”

“Ray, please, you cannot curse on this show. This is a show being broadcast during the day on a family network!”

“Oh, right, right, sorry about that.”

“OK and ACTION!”

“When I found out we were pregnant, my stomach flipped a few hundred times! *laughs* I told my boss and he wasn’t too enthusiastic for some reason, starting in with ‘What about work?’ and ‘Who is going to cover for you?’ and whatnot. What a shitbrick!”

“CUT!”

The interviewer hurriedly packs up her things as the entire camera crew packs up and leaves within a five minute time period. Ray looks around confused and then heads into the kitchen where Judy is waiting expectantly.

“Well, how did it go?” Judy asks.

“I think it went OK, Jude. I really do.” Ray says. Just then he leans very close to Judy’s face, inspecting her eyebrows. He reaches up suddenly and violently pulls a handful of eyebrow hair from in between Judy’s eyebrows. “Told you to clean that shit up,” he says as Judy tears up and the sound of squealing tires shrieks from the driveway.

Office Doorway Etiquette

I work in an office. I think I have mentioned this before. I work in the kind of office that you picture in your head when you hear the word “office”: Rows of cubicles with grey walls and little windows. Some of the walls have jaunty decorations with lots of pictures of the kids thrown in for good measure. Around the holidays, everyone expresses their “individuality” by putting up little strings of lights or other similarly themed decorations (until corporate circulates a memo reminding everyone that they work in a corporate environment and should treat said environment with such respect as a corporate environment deserves in these trying…zzzzzzzzzzz)

Huh?

Oh, the office. My office building has two sets of doors at the main entrance. The main front facing door and then two steps after that a second door. The little foyer or entranceway in between the two sets of doors serves no purpose, but it is there anyway taking up space (kind of like the people who type up corporate memos). When I arrive at work each morning, there are usually at least two or three other co-workers arriving at the same time making a tiny dispirited parade as we near the first door. The man ahead of me swipes his employee ID card and opens the outer door, holding it open for me as I swipe my ID card.

I say “Thank You!” to the man for being so considerate.

He then arrives at the second door and holds that door open for me also.

At this point, a variety of things happen.

Sometimes I say “Thanks” in a quieter voice hoping to somehow diminish the gratitude I’m displaying in light of the fact that I just gave him a hearty “THANK YOU” not seconds before.

Sometimes, I say nothing because who does this guy think he is wanting two separate displays of gratitude mere seconds apart? Ghandi?

Sometimes (though not often) I say “THANK YOU” just as enthusiastically as the first time, especially if he looks like he’s about to weep openly or side-kick my Achilles tendon.

Sometimes I say “FUCK OFF!” as loud as I can just to completely throw him for a loop and make him rethink his chivalrousness.

OK, I don’t do that last one. Most often, I go with option one which is an odd “Doorway Etiquette” rule that I see many other people engage in also.

“Thank you!” *quieter voice* “Thanks”. As if giving out two “Thank You’s” in a row at the same volume is somehow off-putting to the recipient. Do people feel that the gratitude offered has to be on sliding scale and the second expression somehow has to be diminished so the recipient doesn’t think you are hitting on them, or just insane? If you omit the second thank you, do you feel a little bad as you walk thinking that maybe the person who held the door open for you two times in a row thinks you are a total prick?

What do you do when faced with two sets of doors and “Harry Helpful” holding them both open for you?

What would you do if there were three consecutive doors? Are there any buildings that have 15 consecutive doors?

How low can your voice get while still remaining audible?

Would you eventually write “Thank You” on a post-it note in smaller and smaller writing?

What if “Harry Helpful” was actually “Harriet Helpful” and for the life of you it is impossible to tell if that is a dude or a woman?

At the end of the day when everyone is leaving the building, why is there someone always rapidly walking back toward the building and why does someone inevitably say “Hey, you’re goin’ the wrong way! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL! LOL!” as the rapid-walker mumbles an excuse about forgetting their keys?

These are the things I think about as I wander up the stairs toward cubicle town.

Urgent Questions: Volume XI

When Pluto got demoted from “ninth planet in the solar system” to “non-planet”, do you think Neptune gave it the finger every time they passed each other in orbit, or would Neptune be the kind of planet that would send flowers and be sympathetic? Actually I think Neptune realizes that it’s next if it doesn’t shape up, so it’s probably on its best behavior right now.

When dogs walk backwards, do you laugh at the sheer hilarity of it, or start walking backwards yourself because you are just that insecure?

If your friendly local milkman leaves two bottles of milk on your doorstep instead of one, would you run naked out of your house and whip him half to death with a Korean Death Reed, or would you finally admit that milkmen have no ready access to anthrax, and the fact that milk is white doesn’t automatically make it the same as “Death Powder from Al Qaeda”. Trust me; the judge will want you to admit that. He will also want you to wear some slacks and a nice oxford to the hearing.

If I opened a Chinese restaurant on Chinese New Year in the heart of Chinatown, would people gather around to chuckle at the perfect timing, or would they run in and order two helpings of “Happy Rainbow Dragon Family on Wisdom Pearl Circle”? That’s my signature dish, which is really just shrimp and vegetables like 90 percent of the menu.

If laughter is the best medicine, wouldn’t screaming be the worst medicine? If so, give me a double dose of sweet laughter, because all of your screaming is making me totally sick, man.

When squirrels suddenly stop in place and stand straight up alertly looking around, do you think they are doing that because they have sensitive earthquake-detecting feet and they know something you don’t?

If monkeys could fly, would pigs follow soon after, thereby making people all over the world do a bunch of things they never thought they would do, but definitely agreed to as long as either monkeys or pigs flew? I think the pigs and monkeys would team up, with monkeys riding on the pig’s backs, just to stick it to all those suckers who never thought either one would happen, much less both at the same time.

Have you ever thrown a stick for your dog, and then shrieked in terror when he came back with a human hand in his mouth? I don’t know why you were so surprised, that wasn’t a stick you threw for the dog; it was your Aunt Bobo.

If a snake slithered up to you and asked you for directions to the art museum, would you mock him for liking art, or would you shake his hand and offer him a cool glass of lemonade and a friendly smile? What do you mean, snakes don’t have hands? They don’t talk and go to art museums either, what’s your point?

Have you ever put “Deadly Karate” on a resume just to intimidate the hiring manager into giving you a job?

Does your girlfriend roll a Honda, playing workout tapes by Fonda? I don’t know if this is common knowledge or not, but Fonda does not have a motor in the back of her Honda; true story.

If you walk into a grocery store with a bear suit on, do you go right for the meat section to keep up appearances, or do you browse a little while, trying to appear like a casual bear?

If fifty-five sheep came barreling down a hill towards your house, would you be impressed at the fact that there are fifty-five sheep (in a group) in your suburban neighborhood, or would you piss your pants and secretly admit that your father was right all these years? The sheep are mobilizing, they have tripled in numbers, and they appear to be much more organized than they were in ’78.

If Johnny goes to the hardware store and buys five nails, and Lucy goes to the same hardware store and buys a hammer, and Billy goes to the same hardware store and buys six coils of rope, how long will it take before Lucy realizes that Johnny and Billy are gay and they probably don’t even find her attractive, even though she went out of her way to wear her best dress? What a waste!