Let's Roll the Dice!

People keep asking me how I feel about having a baby. In a civil society, I guess that’s a pretty reasonable question to ask someone who’s going to have a kid soon.

“Oh you’re having a kid? How exciting!”

“Yeah, it’s good stuff.”

“Are you nervous? Excited?”

It’s a connection people want to make. And I appreciate that they want to make it. But part of me feels like I can’t be honest in these exchanges.

“Are you nervous? Excited?”

“Yeah, a bit of both.”

That’s honest, but it’s withholding.

Still, people are satisfied with that. They don’t seem to want more. They got to be friendly by demonstrating an interest. And I got to pretend that I’m not a sociopath by not being more honest.

So what is this nagging itch inside of me that wants to be more honest? Why can’t I leave well enough alone? Maybe it’s just so boring telling acquaintance after acquaintance that I’m “super excited, but yeah, a bit nervous too.” But I really feel like there is no room in our society for the honesty of a new parent to be.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Well, no. My wife is. I don’t have a vagina.” But we covered this already.

“Okay… weirdo. Are you excited?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty excited. But in kind of an ‘Oh my fuck, I have no idea what’s coming’ kind of way. If that makes sense.”

“What? No. What do you mean?”

And this is the point in my make believe conversation where I really open up. Because first of all I am stoked. But I'm not excited in the normal sense. Like if I buy a new car. I'm really excited. It's new. It's like a new toy almost. A really expensive new toy. But one that should last a really long time. Adrenaline. Excitement. Pride. Summer heat, windows rolled down, music blaring, driving down the highway. Exciting.

Or the excitement at having sex the first time. Something new. You're not sure what it's going to feel like, but you're pretty sure it's going to be amazing. And it will most likely end with an orgasm (unless you’re a woman). Pretty exciting stuff.

Well, this baby isn't going to end with an orgasm, though it did start with one (woo-hoo!). And it's not really a toy. It is really expensive. But not a toy. Also, unlike a new car (or other purchase), I can't just get a new one if it breaks. If it breaks, I will likely be devastated.

Which reminds me, a baby can die. This is not exciting at all. A baby can grow up to be 15 and get run over by a semi. A baby can get cancer. A baby can be born with non-functioning vital organs and die almost immediately after being born. There's a shitload of bad things that can happen that will really bum me out. If my new car is a lemon, there are laws that say I get a new one. If my baby is a lemon, I’m stuck with it. And I’ve got some amount of emotional investment in this little guy (or gal) already.

(At this point, I’d like to point out why I can’t have this conversation in normal society… Acquaintances generally frown upon statements like, “If my baby is a lemon…” No sense of humor.)

And unlike having sex for the first time, if it disappoints, I can't just try again. I don't really have any expectations for my baby. I'm not into expectations. So it will be hard for the baby to disappoint. But I do have a few expectations. I expect that a child of mine will not be a criminal or a drug addict. I expect that my wife and I will be able to intervene in either of those possible outcomes. But if the baby is a junkie hooker, I'll still have to love it. If it’s a murdering cannibal, it'll be my murdering cannibal. Jeffrey Dahmer's parents visited him in prison, right? I think I'll be bummed out if my baby is Jeffrey Dahmer, but Jeffrey Dahmer will still be my baby. I can't throw it back. It’s my job as a parent to love and support my little monster.

While those are slim possibilities, there’s a strong chance that my baby will  run into any number of mental health issues that it will inherit... from me. O.C.D. Depression. Social anxiety. My baby could be a lifetime of unhappiness waiting to happen. Yikes. Having a baby really requires you to take an almost arrogant gamble on your genetic code.

“Hey honey, what’s in your DNA?”

“Lots of cancer. How ‘bout you?”

“Well, all my grandparents made it to 90, but some of ‘em went crazy!”

“Fuck it! Maybe our baby will get your physical constitution and my family’s relatively stable psyches!” We high five.

 “Let’s roll the dice!”

And with that we conceived! But let’s assume all goes well. Physically healthy baby. Not the type to eat people. Mentally stable. Baby is born with a predisposition and genetic code fit for a long, healthy, happy life.

But that’s just the predisposition! There’s still the possibility of my wife and I taking a healthy predisposition and turning it into a cross-wired, twisted disposition. Take into account my own inability to function as a human being, let alone as a father for a minute. I'm out in the world crapping my pants, I don't do the dishes or laundry enough, I don't clean… ever. I'm barely functioning.

A friend of mine tells me once you have a baby, it all kicks in. So now I’m banking on instincts kicking in to make me a reasonable human being? I'm depending on a baby that won’t be able to hold its head up to kick me into gear? Holy shit is that a bad idea.

What kind of direction and stability can I possibly provide when I have had so very little sense of direction myself?

And yet I've never in my life been as sure of anything as much as I am sure that I want to have children. And that I am excited for this baby. So that's kind of what I mean by I'm excited in an "Oh my fuck, I have no idea what's coming" way. And since no one wants to hear any of this, when they ask, “Are you nervous? Excited?” I just tell them, “Yeah, a bit of both.”

The Snake!

So I'm 30-years old and I'm still on Facebook. I don't really use it. It's mostly a marketing tool because I'm in a couple hobby rock bands. Props to Andrew for coming up with "hobby rock." If the Remarkables or the Counterfeit Money Machine play a show, there's enough people on Facebook still that we can create an event and get the word out easily. This seems to be what everyone does on there these days. Whenever I see someone post a genuine, trying to make a connection status, like, "Went to the grocery store...all out of strawberries...boooo!" I kind of smile and think, "People are still doing this?"

It's almost all events and people sharing internet memes. And me telling people to read my blog. Generally, it's all white noise for me. The only events I care about are the ones I'm promoting. I get invited to 10 things a day, and they all just get deleted. But today, one of them caught my eye.

"You're invited to Jake the Snake's 30th birthday party!"

I am? Awesome. Jake the Snake was a guy I went to grade school with who I haven't talked to in probably 10 years. And that was probably a drunken grunt at a bar.

"Hey, aven't seen you ins like, hit's been uh-while, huh?"

"S'what're y'up to 'ese days?"

Brilliant conversation. Before that it had to have been another six years since we graduated from Catholic school together. But somewhere along the line, we became "friends" on Facebook. Probably because one of us wanted to see how fat each other had gotten. I assume I was invited simply because whoever was throwing the party had invited everyone in his "friends" group. Jake and I had never really been friends, we'd been more of rivals. But all the same, I think we had a pretty healthy childhood rivalry. We were both kind of competing alpha males of sorts, I guess. All in all, I wish him well and harbor no ill will towards him at all.

Having said that... what caught my eye about this particular Facebook event invite, what made me stop and do a double take and notice this particular party out of the many comedy show invites and bad improv invites was this simple fact:

Jake the Snake can't have a 30th birthday party. Jake can turn 30. But Jake the Snake cannot turn 30.

If you're 30 years old and you're still Jake the Snake, you better be in a coma. And everybody better be calling you "the Snake" to cheer themselves up.

"Remember when the Snake split the defenders in the 5th grade championship game and drove to the hole for the winning layup?"

"Yeah, that was great."

"You're gonna pull through buddy, you're Jake the Snake! The Snake always pulls it out in the end!"

If you're 30, can hold a job, but you're not a porn star, a wrestler, or an NFL quarterback, you are not Jake the Snake. You're just Jake now. And, in point of fact, you're probably not even Jake. You're probably John.

It's kind of a loaded name to give a child. Jake. Because all Jake's are the Snake. When parents decide to name their kid Jake, they wink at each other knowingly, "Not just 'Jake'," their eyes say. "'Jake the Snake.'" Then they nod their heads and furrow their brows as they give each other mental high fives. Real original guys.

As my wife and I are considering baby names, I can tell you this much, Jake will not be an option. And not because of my childhood rival. But just because of the implied "Snake" moniker. Maybe if we could subvert it somehow. We name our son Jake, and when he starts playing basketball and people start calling him, "The Snake," we interrupt them.

"--whoa, whoa, whoa. He's not the Snake. He's Cornflake Jake. Have you ever seen this kid eat corn flakes?"

Jake the Quake. We train him to just be really fat.

Piece of Cake Jake. Everything's really easy for him.

Jake the Mistake. Oopsy-daisy. We weren't trying not to hard enough.

Anything but the Snake. In all probability though, there will be no Jake. Now I just hope that Jake doesn't see this on Facebook and think I'm obsessed with him. But let's be honest, no one uses Facebook any more except for spamming people with events.