Ex-Tabula Rasa

“Parenthood is so Fulfilling!”

Yup, parenthood is so fulfilling. So fucking fulfilling.

I was trying to think of things more fulfilling than trying to get a baby to sleep for the better part of six hours and receiving about 45 minutes’ worth of sleep for my troubles and all I could come up with was

• Catching tapeworm in an Armenian prison
• Arranging all of my spoons in size order on the kitchen counter and staring, blankly, at my handiwork while trees bend in the wind outside
• Walking around the area until I find a blue Volvo and standing next to the blue Volvo looking into one of the windows as if I had left my keys in the blue Volvo and telling any passers-by that I had lost the keys to my blue Volvo and then saying “Wait, this isn’t my blue Volvo” and then saying “Wait, I don’t have a blue Volvo” and then walking away, crying
• Being forced to eat packing foam by a gun-wielding clown
• Getting one of the many sleep-training manuals in our apartment and replacing every instance of the word “Sleep” with “Fuck off you charlatan quack huckster everything you say is a lie if I ever catch you signing copies of your latest horse-feathers claptrap in an Indigo bookstore near me I’ll attack you with a pair of safety infant nail clippers”
• Defecating on a speedbump
• Trying to convince former Baywatch actress Alexandra Paul that you’re from the future and need to warn her not to take a role in an upcoming made-for-TV movie about a family coming to terms with something tragic because if she does the entire nation of Malaysia will be doomed
• Being on fire
• Listening to people vomit undigested cashew nuts into a metal bin and telling yourself that the evening rain sounds beautiful
• Coming home from work to find that your parents put a classified ad in the newspaper selling all of your possessions and watching, teary-eyed, as the buyer comes down from your room with the last box of your things and says, “I don’t have room for this in the van so I’m just going to burn it outside.”