Don't Let Grandma Down

Part 21 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

It’s unfortunate that we haven’t found a way to bring more people onboard without succumbing to the ways of the flesh. Cloning has limited value because of the randomness of the families they draw. So there's still a ways to go. Seeming to reinforce the old adage, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, six of damned one, half a dozen of damned other.” We're stymied, because we want friends and family and they have to come from somewhere. Yet we know there’s death in them thar drawers, and it'd be great to be principled and consistent in our convictions.

The fact is very few of us are as good as we want to be. Even a sweetheart like Grandma and every traditional grandma I’ve ever heard of. There’s a whole new breed of grandmas, consisting of younger ladies. I question their legitimacy. But getting back to our traditional grandmas, I believe they came by their children as a necessity, mostly to repopulate the farms when the other farm hands were away at war.

So there’s some circumstances where sex has a positive side, very rarely. If your goal is something righteous -- repopulating the farm -- it appears to put aside some of the pain and guilt, the death in them thar drawers. But there's always a terrible nagging sense that you’ve let someone down. Which was clearly painful for Grandma, always torn by the issue. One side of her loved us dearly, and the other, naturally, resented bitterly our very birth; I for one never aspired to be a farm hand, so that was another mark against me.

Thankfully, she kept a lot of her bitterness to herself. In a passive-aggressive way she went about her sewing, her legs demurely covered with a blanket for warmth. It also helped her fight any natural aggression against us before we learned the rules of a decent society in regards to nature’s so-called “ways.” They drilled it into me, and I’ve never forgotten the lessons. I can still recite it: “Sex makes farm hands in case of war!” Which was strangely contradicted by the fact that we had lots of other people around. Cousins, aunts, grandpas, in addition to the dominant class of society, far and away the majority of the population, unemployed farm hands. Frankly, we could use a good old-fashioned war to use up some of them!

I myself vow to keep my chastity. With Grandma long gone now, it's less an issue to her here on earth, but I know somewhere up there she’s looking down, and I fear to let her down by foolishly siring a few unemployed farm hands of my own. So far, then, there’s no death in mine har drawers, unlike the drawers of others in which thar is lots of death in them.

Forebears & Lawn Mowers

Part 6 of 30

There's Death In Them Thar Drawers

There’s a lot of my fellow men around, along with the other major segment of the population, their womenfolk, who have been careless, to put it mildly, with what they’re packing. I actually know some of the temptation of plopping out what's packed in your drawers, but fortunately I also know the benefits of forbearance without being a forebear myself.

Yes, that’s right. I made my mind up a long time ago that the older generation knew what they were talking about: “There’s death in them thar drawers.” And it was obviously true, because people were getting old and dying all the time. Including my great-grandparents, some of whom I knew! They looked at me like they didn't know who I was, that's how wasted they were. Their sins had prematurely aged them; they were already old when I was born. Then my regular grandmas and grandpas. The weird thing is this was the time of the world wars, so I beat the odds by being born at all. They were being mowed down by the grim reaper. A few more would pop up and the reaper would mow them down. But somehow my immediate people were missed.

Those were lessons I heard growing up. The street where we lived, a lot of people went to war and never came back. Which had an interesting effect on the yards up the street. Their lawns were completely neglected, one of our constant complaints. “Every time you let your lawn go, it gets weeds and thistles, and the spores and seeds come floating over to our place and we get ‘em too!” It was by thistles, weeds, etc., that Grandpa taught me the facts of life. All the way up to human beings and the conclusion, that, clearly, “There’s death in them thar drawers!” So I learned that man has children, they start a war, Man goes to war to kill the children. Then thistles take over and we need a new lawn mower.

It’s sad to put it out there like that, I know. But we can learn the lessons and be positive by dropping out of the whole scheme. Instead of having sex (death in them thar drawers) we can keep our purity. One obvious benefit of purity is not enough people to start a war. But without a war, man is thwarted in his desire to go to war to kill the children. Leaving less time for thistles to take over -- giving the survivors better lawns, but without children more or less condemning lawn mower factories. Who themselves might start a war, or encourage sex merely from a selfish profit motive, selling more mowers.

Sumpin Better Nuttin -- Threebee

The Querulous Question Mark

I like that big rugged question mark (above), the dot big as a tire, the curves dominant with confidence. There’s no doubt I’m asking a question, to the point with edginess, even elegance. Asking boldly, couched in fearless determination. Prying into your precious business — perhaps — or asserting the question with such insistence, if you don’t answer, the next time it's gonna be in your face. I tried it the easy way...

My way of asking, though, is rarely edgy. But more like, “Hey, I asked, it’s OK if you say no,” stopping just short of being miffed or querulous. That's a good attitude in my opinion, because at least I asked. And whoever the other guy is, The right of first refusal might just be a refusal. And if I’m ill-tempered, I can keep it secret.

But is this a day for being fractious, cantankerous, or liverish? Liverish? Don’t think I’ve heard that word before. I might adopt some of these words into my everyday vocabulary. Someone asks me how a third person was, and while I can’t speak for the third person, I can address the issue of the third person's apparent state. “Friend, the third person was liverish, or should I just blabber a more common lingo and say she was sour, bilious, and dyspeptic? Time fails me to mention choleric or splenetic, although I do have just time enough to fit in scratchy.

Are those words good words? A question mark like that hopes the answer's yes. Does my question mark convey that degree of snottiness without coming right out and saying it? Careful how you answer. It could be bad news.


One Word in Front of Another

Looks like a theme today. Words in front of other words, in other words, words, words, words, for what they’re worth. Ask Wordsworth, he can tell you what a word’s worth. There was a word in the beginning, the word says, and there’s a moment of silence in the end, then they lower the boom. And boom might've been the first word, the Big Bang. Trailing off with the OM.

My very first words as a kid — and I have actual documentation on this — were get (git) and mama and dada. I don't remember it firsthand, but when a baby says GET it means something I want. Acquiring something with which to start my collection, or a down payment on my next meal: “Reach over and get me that box of chocolates.” Which explains my present-day bad teeth, too much getting of things I shouldn’t have been getting into.

In a way I miss those days of obvious unconsciousness and growing consciousness. What do any of us know at that age? We’re not as experienced as now when we want something. We want it, we may get it, we may not. Just saying “Get” to Mama or Dada comes with the possibility of them saying no. And then I’ve got another word: “No? Excuse me. Why’d you even give me life if all you want to do is say No.” Then I throw the back of my hand against my forehead, lamenting, “If I’d known how cruel life was I never would’ve been born! Thanks, Mama and Dada, for nothing!”

The honest truth of the matter is, I didn’t speak to my parents that way. More que sera sera. Yes, I got in trouble for things, and we had disagreements. But 'nuff words. That day was a day for learning.


From A to Zed

Here’s one I didn’t know the details of. Why the British say Zed and Americans say Zee. We need to defer to the English on this one, since it is English. Although this is one where I have the inside track, since a bunch of my people were English. I haven’t taken the DNA test, but others have, and online genealogical information bears it out.

We used to have a pool table when I was growing up and I even did the billiards version of English, never content just to poke the ball in the default straightforward way. I’d spin the thing from below, which meant it jumped back in my lap several times. I polished my knuckles for the achievement. Or I'd use English on it from the top, and I think with that one it stops when it hits a ball.

Anyway, I’m an English speaker by genetics and upbringing. But no one ever cleared it with me this business of saying Zed for Zee. It sounds weird, but, hey, it’s just one letter off. Hard to figure, though, how one little letter makes it sound so prim and proper, even high falutin’. You might see me with my teacup and my little finger out at the same angle as my lifted shoulders. Keeping a stiff upper lip and all that poppycock, guvnor. Harumph!

Eating my pigs in blankets -- right, mate -- keeping my nasty little piggies warm, my piggies in heat, the whole sloppy farmyard abuzz (a couple zeds in that buzzard), and a big old piggie — a damned boar over there with balls the size of Texas — honored to bear the distinguished, historic name Winston Churchill.

Impregnate Enough Women, You'll Pay

A guy told me the other day I was old, true story. It hit me hard, since I can’t see it in a mirror. And the guy’s a friend, whom I’ve backed up a bunch of times in the past, so I don’t think he’s lying. But he’s old, too.

His history’s an interesting one, which is coming out increasingly now that we have genetic testing and Facebook. A bunch of people looking for their roots with DNA have zeroed in on him as their actual father, and now they're trying to connect with him on Facebook. All this was a big surprise to his wife of 40+ years!

As for me, I’ve essentially been chaste over the years, so there’s zero kids showing up, and any that ever would would have to be frauds. In his case — I don’t know if his basic problem is the roving eye or simply the way his conscience shuts off after a couple beers — his claimants are not frauds. DNA’s a calling card you can’t deny.

So far he knows he has 56 secret kids. Several of these he’s known of for years, since a bunch of the women were from this area. Others aren’t known at all. But he's had hookups at Silage City for years. He and I used to camp at Silage Lake, and he was always going out for "midnight walks," leaving me alone in the tent with room to spread out.

“Why don't you use a rubber?” I'd ask when he confessed his walk had an amorous end. “It cramps my style,” he’d say, along with a bunch of other excuses about passion at its highest can’t be ruined. I have to say — brag a little about myself — my Sunday School upbringing saved me a lot, both on rubbers at the time and on newfound relatives of the engendered sort showing up unexpectedly. There aren’t any!

OK, as for his wife, naturally she’s pissed. If this doesn’t kill her, nothing will. So far she’s still alive, so now he’s stuck with her and her fabled bad temper forever. She might take the house if they split. But I don’t see an old guy and an old woman splitting up. They have too many accounts, Social Security, various insurance payments coming in in common to screw with it.

If she asks my opinion, I’m not going to back off my condemnation of Ralph for living a completely profligate way. Is he a nice guy? Yes. Is he a bastard? He can be, and more so than most. But should the wife be surprised? I don’t think so. She knows how horny he is and how he’d come home from a camping trip totally sated. Can’t tell me she wasn’t putting 2 + 2 together. Not suspecting me, of course; my morals are widely known throughout the Midwest. You see my license plate CHASTE and you know I'm much better than most.

I might have a talk with her. The best way to put big numbers in context and minimize them is to use bigger numbers. Yes, he fathered 56 children, but it wasn’t 156 or 256 or even 356. If he had 356 kids with other women, imagine how so completely horrendous that’d be compared to a minuscule 56. You have 356 kids, you may as well just go for 400. Or a complete ream, 500. That’d be sinful in anyone’s opinion. But impressive in terms of world records.

I’m glad his problems aren’t mine. The wife's always on his case, and all these kids are reaching out to him, even making a Facebook group, "The Known Children of Ralph B—". Chastity’s the best policy, if you can manage it.

It's a Phlegm Thing, You Wouldn't Understand

I've been noticing ads on Facebook for T-shirts featuring your last name, with the strong hint that there's something very distinctive about your family.

Your name might be Smith, so your T-shirt says, "It's a Smith Thing, You Wouldn't Understand." The rest of us are on the outside looking in, saying to ourselves, "The Smiths, now there's a distinctive family, with mysterious ways, way too mysterious to grasp." What they've got going on seems to be vaguely familiar, like the lives of everyone else, but who would know better than they whether others would understand. Same thing with the Joneses.

Of course it's not just huge names like Smith and Jones for whom this is true. In fact, I'd almost guess they'd get fewer orders from those whose names are so extraordinarily widespread. You introduce a guy named Smith to another Smith and they never look at each other like, "What's your dad's name?" or "Where are you from?" My guess, the Smiths would hardly ever buy the shirt.

But there's lots of other names that aren't so common, and it's those who probably do believe they're so different it's worth bragging about. Like my family, the Slumps. Look it up, we're few and far between. And it's not that we haven't been horny enough to have babies. It's just that they're either girls who marry and insist on changing their name, according to tradition, or impotent boys, carrying traces of the scourge of first cousins Billy and Polly from the '20s. It's definitely a Slump thing, a taint that's mixed in with the DNA and now affects us all, living and dead. You wouldn't understand.

There's all kinds of things that can make a family go haywire. Cousin Andy sits on an infected toilet seat, comes home and infects the whole family. Or they're all drinking from the same ladle, like we used to do. Add to it, some of our wells have an excess of rust, which is just metal gone sour, and when a family infection hits it, it's magnetic, passed from one Slump to another at a distance.

Obviously there has to be some good reason that I've had a hard time passing on my genes. I'm 62 and haven't managed it yet, unless, and I'm still holding out hope, some of my early romantic forays bore fruit they didn't tell me about. I know that happens. There used to be a guy up the road who came back from World War II, one of the Butlers, and they say he had so many babies by French women it was scary. His T-shirt would say, "It's a Butler/Fifi's Dad's Mad Thing, You Wouldn't Understand."

All that to get to this, the company could expand beyond just names to talents, hobbies, and conditions. Occupations and hobbies are obvious.  Model trains, comic books, or how about fracking for an occupation? Drawing of a mountain shaking off its foundation: "It's a Fracking Thing, No One Understands, Another Hundred Earthquakes? Oops."

How about health conditions? I don't want to sicken you anymore than I have to. But we have a guy who's always coughing and spitting, an endless thing, his throat's in overdrive. They thought it was pneumonia, now we know he was hijacked by phlegm. "It's a Phlegm Thing, You Wouldn't Understand." Hack, hack, hock, spit!

The NSA and Baby Monitors

Welcome to the true nanny state, as our National Security Agency (NSA), with their great success at surveillance on all other fronts, turns its attention to the last frontier, baby monitors. These limited communication devices, usually with such innocent messages -- "Good baby," "Baby wet," and "Hey, Mom, get your butt in here!" -- can also be channels of deceit and intrigue, detrimental to national and international security.

They say kids are growing up faster all the time. We've all seen that's true. Kids shooting one another, kids blowing up schools, and of course, kid entrepreneurs buying up multinational companies and burning them to the ground for the insurance. With schools -- this is no laughing matter -- kids are developing a war mentality: "If I'm old enough to go to school, I'm old enough to vote and drink." It's a lot different from when I was a kid. If the teacher saw you with a knife, let's say, she gave you a thumbs up and we continued our mumblypeg game. But the downside was we couldn't vote or drink.

Now it appears, we're facing an even more insidious enemy, the innocent baby. Think of Vladimir Putin. Is there a bigger babyface than him on the international scene? There actually is, Kim Jong Un, but we've got him contained. That leaves Putin, who, with his KGB background has brought the old Soviet mindset to our shores in the most despicable manner possible, in our freshly-minted youngsters, fresh out of the womb, fresh into the party! Communists!

Look at the way they do it in hospitals. The babies are in a little commune behind glass, one big happy family, sharing and sharing alike, identifying themselves by party colors, pink and blue. I think I've got that right. Pink field, blue sickle in the corner. It's only right that the NSA would do their best to protect the homeland, gathering and massaging all the intelligence they can get. I know they even have a number of my calls by now, checking around as I have with various baby stores about monitors in researching this article. Some creeps google pressure cookers -- and not just Grandma -- I google baby devices. Both dangerous to do.

Anyway, we've always looked at these monitors as completely innocent, because Mom, and to a more limited degree Dad, thought they needed them to keep Junior or Princess protected. God forbid they soil themselves and they miss their immediate cry! They might have to lay in their own filth a few seconds. Seriously, my opinion, we've been babying babies far too long. We should let them experience life as it really is, tough. Lie in it, kid! Learn what Desitin's for! Of course we wouldn't let them suffer to the point of demanding the vote and liquor, just give them moderate toughness, of the right kind, American toughness.

But no, instead, by babying them various party apparatchiks have taken advantage and infiltrated the nursery, knowing the little buggers would reveal information via the monitor. "What's your father up to?" "Burning flags in the basement." "What's your mom doing?" "Something with a breast pump, sending milk to Russia and Red China, hoping to develop super warriors, that America be destroyed from within and without." God, that's insidious! Who was it who rued "The Enemy Within"? One of the Kennedys, Churchill, or some bigwig like that? They didn't expect the enemy within to be so young ... and apparently so helpless!

Then there's kids who aren't merely passive and accepting of outside schemes. There's the ones with brains -- probably reincarnated Cold Warriors -- who know where the grids are and what grids do and can be made to do. They're the ones who immediately know how to communicate via these obscure radio frequencies -- baby monitors -- the plans of a mastermind: "We'll meet at the docks. The soldiers are hiding in tuna barrels. You'll know them by their breath, smelling of fish. Get there by 8:00 p.m. Bring mayo."

I have to say, friends, I'm glad -- you don't know how glad! -- the NSA is on this. And patrolling neighborhoods all through our threatened land. Recording baby monitors and protecting democracy from future generations, hopefully never to be born.

Preemie Gulch -- A Town of Preemies

What a cool alternate reality, if you're into this kind of thing. Especially wonderful for anyone's ever felt a persistent, nagging desire to be early for things. Which I guess I've had plenty of times, since being late, in my opinion, isn't good.

I heard of this place from a guy, and I'm certain it exists, like fairies and Brigadoon. Somehow, like everything else in the fertile mind of man, this also came to be. He told me he was born a preemie, so he hates being late. As for the rest of his story, and maybe mine, I'm filling in the blanks as quickly as I can, since I'd rather get done early than late.

We all know what a preemie is, of course, especially my mother readers, mothers who have had to go through all the prenatal aspects of nature before finally delivering their little rug rats. A preemie is the kid who'd rather come prematurely, early, not honoring his or her in utero lease for the full nine months.

The place we're talking about is a wonderful version of paradise, called Preemie Gulch. Like other utopian visions, it was thought up by people who were preemies, and have carried through on preemie values. Of course the whole thing had been imagined many times, but for someone to actually carry through and establish the place, that took something special.

At Preemie Gulch, the guy told me, they do many things a month in advance. Like filing taxes. I've known plenty of people who file in January, but mostly because they're looking for a refund. In Preemie Gulch, since everyone is so industrious, never letting anything slide till it's too late to benefit, they don't get refunds, they pay. But they still file a month in advance.

As you might've guessed, everything about their schedule is way ahead. School officially starts at 9:00 but their kids are there at 7. Happy Hour is 3, they're lined up at 1. Even TV is different. The late-late show is at 8 p.m. They don't dare have Daylight Savings Time or they'd be up all night!

That's basically the main preemie value behind Preemie Gulch's existence. They were constantly frustrated with the outside world, the rest of us who show up on time or even late. I know I've even been frustrated by that, even though I'm not a preemie, that I know of. I could ask my mom, but I surely wasn't; I was 8 pounds something and preemies are usually under 4; and to this day I like warmth; I get bundled up in a blanket, I can't be budged; I can't believe I would ever give up my lease a minute early. Still, it's frustrating, wherever you are, when people show up late. If it bothers me, think of what an actual preemie thinks!

So in Preemie Gulch they do everything on the Early Bird principle. That's even the name of the school team, the Early Birds, seriously. For the girls, the Lady Early Birds. They have early bird specials in their stores, etc. If someone has a garage sale at 8 a.m., that's just so no one will show up before 5. By 8:00 the whole thing's over. There's so much early birding, worms don't stand a chance.

But here's an example of how everyone being early can have negative consequences: The houses in Preemie Gulch are very nice. The basements are always finished and done so in the greatest way. Because everyone wants to move in early, before the place is built. They simply can't wait. Although the carpenters aren't slow to build. In fact, they usually start building before they even get the blueprints, simply because waiting is so hard.

This doesn't always happen, because the guys in charge of blueprints usually have the blueprints done before they even know what the people want. Although the people aren't slow about making their wishes known, since they're normally at the blueprint place a few days before their appointment. Then, naturally, you have blueprint guys who are upset that they weren't there early enough for them to start earlier. It goes like that. The most extreme consequence is the house is built and decrepit before the eventual owners are even born.

Sample conversation:
"Why didn't you get it done earlier?"
"I'm a preemie, not a mind reader."
"I didn't say you were a mind reader."
"You were going to!"

They're like us in school stuff. They start kids in preschool before school. But the drop-out rate is very bad because no one wants to wait till graduation.

Everything's on a breakneck pace ... in reverse, as you can see. If you can postdate your plans, get started before you're ready, and map out your future before you know what you're doing, you're that much further ahead. Whew! Why put off till tomorrow what you could have done yesterday?

It's becoming somewhat dystopian, my description of the place, although it's truly a paradise.

Point for Discussion: What would happen to Preemie Gulch if the babies born there weren't preemies? Say, in four generations.

Running Circles 'Round The Baby

You know me, I'm as normal as anyone you've ever met. I pride myself on that. I see unusual people, and while I may envy them for a few minutes, I'm actually glad I'm so normal. But even normal ones like me -- who knows the exact reason? -- can erupt, especially if push comes to shove.

Well, darn it all, that happened yesterday. Maybe because it was Sunday, a day for going to church, then erupting in euphoria, which the ancients controlled by an afternoon of blood sacrifice, a luxury we don't typically indulge in, unless of course we're country folk. Still, as you know, any sublimated desire, impulse, or instinct is still there. And finally -- call it the devil, if you will -- in the end it can't be denied. The Nazis proved that completely, which makes me feel better, although I know I'm still to be blamed.

Anyway, I felt the impulses rising up in me. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about, an inflationary surge of light through the spine that has to spill out, the metaphysical equivalent of piss and vinegar. You have to rotate it just so. I nearly had time to offer up my dog on a makeshift altar, the patio table, but then they were here -- relatives -- to take me to the party.

Party? you ask. Parties on Sunday afternoon? Yes, if it's your birthday and you happen to be one-year-old. There's a youngster in the family, and in a few days he turns one, although they had his party a few days early. It was a joy to see him, there in his top hat and his little suitcase, naked except for a diaper. He waved at me cheerfully as he walked by, his walk very tentative. It seems he has been walking for only a week or so, and even with that he's not very good. He takes a few steps, then sits, ending in the family's applause.

OK, like I said, I'm blaming my behavior on the piss and vinegar, the lack of blood sacrifice, everything but the Nazis, who already have enough to answer for. The surge of light was so great -- it was a rather nasty concoction, actually, of light and dark; inner cleansing carries many risks. I couldn't help myself. When the baby finally plopped down in the center of the room, eliciting applause, I erupted, running over and then running in circles around him, becoming, according to the sworn testimony of survivors, a tiger-like blur (cf. Sambo story). Then, to save myself from a buttery end, I ran up the wall all the way to the ceiling and fell with a thud. I cried out, "I know how to walk, too!"

At this point I might hope for sympathy (I couldn't help myself). But once you've ruined a birthday party for a one-year-old, in the eyes of the spiritually bereft you're nothing but dirt. Aunts and uncles, friends of the mother, including quite a few guests I don't know personally, lambasted me with severity, saying things like, "This isn't a competition! If you're somehow a better walker or runner than a baby, no one cares!" What could I do? I rubbed myself in the places where I hurt, and a few where I didn't.

But they kept giving it to me, the full impact, piling on. These aren't exact quotes, but it's the gist of the damned thing:

"Even though this child is 11 months old, just short of being one, he will grow! And he will get a better education than you! He will succeed where you failed! Then one day when you're in the nursing home, unable to get from your bed to the wheelchair without a Hoyer Lift and five CNAs, this baby -- by then fully grown and able to walk, if not fly -- will visit you, and he'll run circles around you! He will also dash up the wall, leaving muddy footprints for you to look at, if you're still able to see!"

There was everything but forgiveness.

Wrong Sex Corrigan

OK, folks, it's official! I'm now 60 years old, having been born some time in the first three months of the year. And as people go, I'm definitely one who's getting "more bang for his buck" for being 60, since I've had a million thoughts, happy, sad, and in between, about this milestone. It sounds very aged, and yet I don't feel completely different; I just can't quit thinking about it. It's given me a lot of opportunities to reflect back on my life.

One of the facts of my life that I can't help thinking of, for some reason, is that I was proclaimed a girl when I was born! And I'm a guy! That sounds weird, and I know it is, but it was actually fairly common here in my town in the early 1950s. And my parents probably should have questioned the situation, being familiar with the problem, but in the excitement of the birth of their "little girl" they forgot. One thing to note: This was back when babies were immediately whisked out of the room away from the mother, to be tended by professionals. It wasn't like now, where the mother and father's care is seen as primary. So, being absent from them, they just had to take their word for what I was.

I said it was common for babies to be misidentified as to their gender back then, but it was only in our town, because the town's main obstetrician had problems seeing. In fact, he made so many mistakes, he was nicknamed "Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan," a play on the famed aviator who ended up somewhere he wasn't going. Our "Dr. Corrigan," not his real name, had problems in making the right call, presumably when a baby was moving too much. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking he just didn't want to second-guess himself, or seem less than professional, so the way he called it was the way it was. It took my parents a lot of money, time, and trouble to get the official birth certificate finally changed! Not to mention the embarrassing exams I was subjected to...

So here's the way it went down. I was born, I must have moved too much when "Corrigan" was making the identification, and he declared to my mother, "Madam, you have just given live birth to a female baby, a real doll, who will someday truly make the boys' heads turn!" She was like, "Thank you, doctor, for a successful delivery and the exceedingly good news! A girl in my own image!" Then I was whisked out of the room, not to be seen by her again till sometime early the next morning, when they allowed her to watch the nurse feed me.

In the years since, of course, I've heard many tales of Dr. Wrong Sex Corrigan, that in delivering girls he was proclaiming, "You have given birth to a fine, strong, bouncing man child," and the like. Sometimes he was right, but thanks to movement, he was more often wrong. This is one of the dangers of having poor eyesight, being cross-eyed or whatever, and trying to be an obstetrician. You give people big problems, and the child him- or herself can develop all kinds of complexes. To this day I like the color pink and hate jockstraps.

After a while, "Dr. Corrigan" either died or retired. Which was good, because people didn't like him, thanks to this whole gender business. I remember my grandpa -- I remember this clearly -- saying if he ever saw the SOB in the crosswalk he would run over him. Grandpa used words like "son of a bitch" all the time, and probably would've run over him, indeed, had he ever seen him in the crosswalk. But "Corrigan" was spared this fate by the fact that you never see a doctor in public, apart from the office. This is true: The only doctor I've ever seen in public was a doctor people liked.

The Imaginary Stud -- Your Biological Clock

I'm a little reluctant to put this out there, because it's killer information. The actual secrets of our species are contained herein. And putting it out there as I am, it could have consequences I'm not prepared to deal with. Such as a terrible backlash, for obvious reasons: The average family doesn't want their sons and daughters hearing this. But I'll just hope I'm not too badly dragged through the mud for it.

If you're reading this and getting hot under the collar, please realize that I myself didn't make it up. And I'm not responsible for the consequences. Although, think about it, if there's a sudden baby boom, a population explosion thanks to me speaking up, it'd be kind of cool to have an entire generation named after my blog, The Grandma Slump Generation. Looking at it that way, maybe I don't feel so bad. Let's get this party started! Just because you came with one guy doesn't mean you can't leave with another! I better get a grip, because it's that kind of talk that really could get me in some serious trouble.

It's this guy I know who told me -- whom I call the Imaginary Stud, because I'm not sure his exploits and conquests are 100% true. But even if I'm not completely sure he's really the father of most of the babies in this area, as he claims, what he says does make a certain amount of sense. I'm a Human Environmental Scientist, and my gut feeling says there's something to it.

In short, here it is: The Imaginary Stud says the in he often gets with women comes after some discussion of their "biological clock." It was a secret to me, but apparently this is the Number 1 button, or source of anxiety, with women. It's not, "I love you, Ginger, let's procreate," as sexy as that sounds. It's not, "You remind me of my sister, let's have a non-cross-eyed rug rat," which is somewhat less sexy. And it's not even, "You've got me so hot, baby, I've gotta have a baby with someone, how about you?!" Desperation is so overrated.

No, it's none of that. According to the man, and he seems to have the confidence of experience, if you casually say something about her "biological clock," not in the heat of the moment but a day or two before, she's going to be mulling it over time and time again. She might laugh at first, but when she's alone, she'll be looking in the mirror for wrinkles, checking her body for any unusual sagging, and, most of all, flushing her pills down the toilet. She might try telling herself, "I'm only 19!," but it'll be only temporary relief.

It's kind of sad in a way. If only she hadn't been tainted by the idea of her ticking biological clock! How much happier she was before he said that! Now there's no recourse but to call the fine, young, intuitive, wise gentleman who obviously knows so much about it. If he brings flowers, who cares? If there's foreplay, who cares? I can't waste another second! I'm virtually dead. By the time my baby's 18, I'll be in my upper 30s! Where have the years gone?!

All this time, of course the Imaginary Stud is expecting a call. And ... "like clockwork" ... there it is! ... The phone is insistent; it jumps out of his pocket. "You wanna come over and ... watch TV ... or something?" she purrs. "I just checked Netflix and it seems to be working." That's rare, he thinks, a sign from above. Then he remembers, We won't be watching much TV tonight!"

We'll follow him just a little further. He gets there. And he is sweet. He has a bouquet of flowers he picked from her yard. But she still very well might back out. It's here that he treads a fine line. If he meets the slightest bit of hesitancy, he will not -- I'll repeat that, he will not -- mention her "biological clock." But he will use the word "clock" a few times, spaced over time. Such as, "That looks like an antique clock, an old one. Gotta love the old days!" Or, pointing at it, "Time really flies. Always later than you think."

She gets the message and there's no more delay. And now, pretty soon, she'll be thinking a lot about time, months, trimesters, etc. While the Imaginary Stud has skipped down the stairs on his merry way, brightening the lives of many others as he makes his frequent stops.

Note: Check my archives for a few more posts on "The Imaginary Stud."

The Imaginary Stud -- What's In A Name?

So the Imaginary Stud was beaten to a pulp and his two front teeth knocked out, and of course he was upset. But I used some of my great people skills to calm him down and send him home to find a comfy chair and settle in with a good book. I told him I'd come check on him.

When I got there earlier this morning, he was stretched out on the floor. The blanket was half on him and stretched to the chair. On the nightstand I saw evidence that he had been trying to drown his sorrows with a half can of beer. How sad. He looked every bit a dead man, the illusion only broken by his rough snoring and violent thrashing about. He was obviously reliving the experience of the deranged sister and wild bulls who had put him in this sorry state.

I shook him and gently called his name. He came up fighting, swinging his fists, and had a hard time breaking the dream's hold. But he finally realized it was me and settled down. "What time is it?" he asked, provoking me to mercifully relieve his curiosity as to the hour of the day by glancing at my cellphone and faithfully conveying the information back to his wondering mind.

He got up, went to the bathroom, did his personal cleansing rituals, then came back and went into a whole yoga/exercise regimen he follows. But before that, he tossed me a "Composition" notebook that he uses to keep track of his dates. He motioned me to open it, which I immediately saw was his way of convincing me that everything he says about his conquests is true.

Indeed, it appears that maybe he really is the father of a very large number of children in the community, assuming the notebook itself isn't part of the ruse. Until I know for sure, I will continue to refer to him as the Imaginary Stud.

He kept the yoga exercises going, bringing his hands together, dangling his foot, breathing in/breathing out, and stretching as I quizzed him on some of the names.

CARMEN -- "She definitely sounds hot," I said. Carmen is a fiery name. I'm sure she was with him every step of the way, a gal who could keep up and give as good as she got! If she had red hair, I wouldn't be surprised. And if she did, I'm sure she had everything that goes along with it! He gave me a gesture that said, "I'm not that good at names, but you're probably right." The two scratch marks indicated twins.

KAYLA -- She sounds like a handful, just going by the name. I'm thinking of kiss, ecstasy, la-la land, and climbing the walls, Kayla clawing his back, Kayla calling out for more, more, more. "Where do you find these chicks?" I asked with a laugh. He kept up the yoga, only gesturing as if to say, "It's really nothing, dime a dozen." There was only one scratch mark, so that'd be a litter of one.

ESTHER -- I'm thinking, Esther? "Come on, you gotta be kidding!" I said. And yet, I got a hold of myself, names aren't everything. She wasn't responsible for her own name. If he had her in the notebook, she must have somehow raised herself above the limitations immediately suggested by her name. I started thinking, maybe he's not kidding me, because what's the chances of him putting "Esther?" If it were all a scam, surely he would've come up with something a little sexier, like Mildred. Be that as it may, there were three scratch marks, so at least she was fertile. Traditional girl from some little village, her first date, stoved up with eggs.

TAWNY -- OK, Tawny, now we're back on good soil. I can well imagine him meeting and sweet-talking a stripper into submission. Of course they can be the toughest cookies to crack, having had all kinds of bad experiences with the male race. But a charmer -- whose charm is real and doesn't quit -- is all it'd really take. And a sweet promise: "I'll take you away from this life and share with you my riches." She'd fall into his arms. Then a quick trip back to her place at the Pine Cone Motel, a roll in the hay, and an angry goodbye. She was good for a single scratch mark, a single kid to keep in the dressing room, sucking his pacifier while Mom grinds out another set.

I thumbed through the book, estimating there had to be at least a hundred names. But his exercises only took 15 minutes, then he needed to get out, see the dentist about a couple of implants, and perhaps work in one or two seductions before lunch.

The Imaginary Stud -- Something So Precious

You remember the Imaginary Stud. He's just a guy, respectable in every way, simply out obeying life's prime directive to reproduce as far and wide as he can. There shouldn't be any problem with that.

There shouldn't be a problem, but of course it's right when you think you're home free that your real troubles begin. Others, in jealousy or obeying some social injunction, step in to hassle you. It's not like he was doing anything he shouldn't! Spores, seeds, the whole thing, are nature's way. No one chops down a tree for dropping its seed.

And it's not the fruit of his actions that's disagreeable, the baby. That's where we all came from. The rest of us, for the most part, are out there doing our part to perpetuate the species, so there really should be no objection. "Children are precious," the Imaginary Stud insists.

Maybe you can tell I'm coming around to a greater belief in the Imaginary Stud's claims that he's the father of every child he sees. Although I'd have to tweak that, I know he's not the father of every child, but perhaps he really is the father of quite a few of them. (I'm still going to refer to him as "the Imaginary Stud" just to keep it clear who I'm talking about.) It would definitely explain the very real tension he shows when he sees a pregnant woman or a woman pushing a stroller. "Hide me!" he hisses.

Be that as it may, I definitely agree with him that children are precious. To have a baby on board, what greater fulfillment could there be for any woman? And to have a houseful of them, such love you're not going to get anywhere else. They are precious, and yet there's always someone to get in the way and deny it.

I saw the Imaginary Stud all banged up the other day and asked him WTF? He looked at me and recalled one of the worst nights of his life. He'd arranged a rendezvous with a particular woman, then found out too late it was a set-up. He'd cried out, "It's a trap!" The woman had him cornered, screaming, "You knocked up my sister and abandoned her, you bastard!" That was her big beef. And if that wasn't enough, she'd arranged a few bulls to be hiding outside in the brush.

He described his thoughts: "It's bad enough I have to deal with a troupe of evil mamas, now their crazy deranged sisters, too?!" He tried to pacify her, a clearly deranged woman, but it was no go. She opened the door and in rushed the bulls. A couple of them held him while the other pummeled him, even knocking out his two front teeth (uppers).

The sister was cackling like a maniac, "Kick him where it counts!" Meaning he would be the sad recipent of a swift, painful assault to the crotch. They took him out and left him in a heap in the middle of the road. Cars veered to miss him and honked their horns, and it was with the greatest struggle that he managed to crawl to the ditch.

He complained to me, "How can something so precious go so terribly wrong?" The whole thing had been a scam. She had lied to him when they could've shared so much. Again, what was precious was trodden underfoot by deceit. Then, capturing him as they did, the kicks, the broken teeth, it was all so wrong, like a blasphemy in the face of life itself.

"But what can you do?" I asked. "There's always going to someone who doesn't get it, so all you can do is rise above it and go on, knowing that you're doing the right thing even if the whole world doubts you." With that, he calmed down, enough that he was able to go back home, get an ice pack and find a comfy chair, and settle down with a good book.

The Imaginary Stud -- Johnny Peopleseed

There is this guy -- The Imaginary Stud -- I'm focusing on for a while. Because he's so extraordinary. He feels, at least he says, that he's responsible every time a pregnant woman walks by or a woman with a baby. "Hide me!" is his constant plea.

Maybe he is responsible for a few of them. Like I said, maybe he's gotten lucky a few times after a wild drunk. But could he be the father of every baby out there? Somehow, I seriously doubt it!

But whether he is indeed the True Stud he thinks he is, and not just the Imaginary Stud I think he is, that question will have to wait for the DNA results, if we're ever able to get him to take a test. Because he appears to be forever on the run, pausing just long enough, according to the story, to impregnate some poor gal who hasn't heard of him. Assuming he's ever impregnated any actual women...

He fancies himself a regular Johnny Peopleseed. Like Appleseed of lore, Peopleseed also has his mission in life, armed only with a single front appendage and a sack of seed. To hear him tell it, the sack continually replenishes itself like the oil and fishes, the cruse of oil and the 5,000 fish of the Bible. He cruises into town, the tank topped off, an eye out to disperse what is needed, knowing it will be replaced later. Like perpetual motion!

I'm only imagining what must happen on one of these encounters: "Hello." A possible likelihood is at hand, a doll face who doesn't know she's meeting the sire of thousands. He's quite open with her now, until he gets his way, then we'll hear him hiss, "Hide me!"

She's standing there with blue jeans cut midriff-high, with enough buns to start a bakery. His eye scans her like the Six Million Dollar Man. Her beauty is one thing. But the Imaginary Stud makes complex evolutionary calculations. "Her nose plus mine. Her pleasant eyes plus mine. Her fantastic build plus mine. She's got the hips for quintuplets!"

He's done it many times, the story goes. And if that's true, the calculations he makes must become less and less conscious and more instinctual. Like the hidden knowledge of a spore or seed, doing its thing, knowing not how. Spore trailing spore, seed/egg, peach/pit, vital essence, the rupture of the egg, he senses all of it at the primal level, raising his head in a sign of joy at the recognition, hearing distant thunder as the lightning delivers another soon-to-be-born soul. Who can blame him? He didn't ask for this duty of nature, we're assuming.

I was reading a few pages of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and came across a passage that reminded me of the Imaginary Stud:

"And, to make a long stoney badder and a whorly show a parfect sight, his Thing went the wholyway retup Suffrogate Strate." (p. 242.)

I couldn't have said it better myself. But I can try:

Needles to say, he epistemologized her, in the bibbling sinse, with an episiotomy probelly in her suture, big heads tending to run in his lying.

The Imaginary Stud

The imaginary stud is a guy whose eyes perk up when he sees a woman walking by with a baby. "Hide me," he says, because he doesn't want the mother of the child to see him.

Except you keep going down the road and eventually see a woman pushing a stroller built for two. "Hide me," he says, quickly averting his face, because two kids, that's so much worse. If she sees him, knowing he hasn't paid whatever child support he would be obligated to pay, he's going to be in big trouble.

You keep going. The imaginary stud is wiping the sweat away from his brow, so much so that the tissue (or cloth) is wringing wet. And he's checking out some of the sweet femininas swinging their hips down the sidewalk. These are some of this thoughts: "Ooo, mama! Look at the butt on that one!" and "Yesss! Come to papa!" And, "I'll take a piece of that ... right now!"

Since we, along with everything else, were meant for reproduction, with the result of our reproduction being meant for reproduction, all the way out to the most distant generation being the same, naturally the guy's eye is going to rove, only finally coming to a rest when he sees something worth feasting his eyes on that would, given the right circumstances, fulfill nature's purpose.

He's in a state of agitation even if you can't see it, because, let's face it, he's socialized (civilized) to a certain extent, and able to keep his pants on and pass by undetected in ordinary circumstances. In other words, we're not talking about Herman Cain, although the guy of our story is still potentially an actual stud.

He is definitely an "imaginary" stud, because, look, he can't physically be the father of every baby in every stroller! There's others out there being the bull in most of these cases. But who knows, maybe he's gotten lucky a time or two -- after some especially wild drunks -- and you never can tell whose kid may be whose! Even if twins, triplets, or quadruplets don't run in his family, there's no way of absolutely excluding the possibility; they could be his!

Speaking of triplets, that's the next group we pass. The mom looks like she might be overwhelmed, because a stroller built for three is rare, and yet there she is, the proud (maybe not) pusher of three. A boy, a girl, and another boy, just to give an example of what we might see were we to stop and look inside. But the proud papa, the imaginary stud, won't be looking that closely, averting his eyes and face: "Hide me," he says, himself overwhelmed, thinking maybe he actually does know her. What a life of drudgery and expense! Diapers for three!

The only thing worse than that .... for our possible papa .... is an even more unusual sight, a woman pushing a stroller with four babies. Four? That's an entire litter! Now we're talking some severe fertility drugs! Something's made nature go haywire! The imaginary stud isn't ready for that kind of commitment! He's barely able to support himself! Still, he did the crime, why shouldn't he be doing the time?

If indeed he did it.