This post was originally published at http://blog.myspace.com/johnrichter_comedian
Heather's mother is throwing her a baby shower in Texas. This is a little bit of a problem, because 1) we don't live in Texas and 2) we don't know anyone that she's invited. She knows it's considered tacky for a mother to throw a baby shower for her daughter, so she's cleverly kept her name off the evite she sent out. There are now several "No" responses that politely say "I'm sorry, I think this invitation was sent to the wrong address", because the guest doesn't know who the fuck we are.
But we're going through with it. After all, who doesn't want to do an 16 hour drive in a car with broken air-conditioning with a pregnant wife through the most godforsaken cultural wasteland in America? (I'll give you 2 dollars to kill me.)
Anyway, in order to make the big event happen, we needed to put together a baby registry. If we were having a shower in Denver, we would register at your more upscale places, like Baby World or Monolo Blahnik Kids ("I picked up Suzi's child and felt a crushing kick to my scrotum - as I doubled over I had one thought - 'Were those Monolos?'"). But we're having our shower in Texas, and needed to register at a place that was readily available to Texans. We couldn't find a dollar store that took food stamps, so we went with Babies R Us (slogan: "If it beeps, flashes and/or nauseates, it's at Babies R Us!").
I'd never been to a giant baby store before. The predominant message of every item is "buy this or your baby will be retarded and die".
Except for the "kill your retarded baby" gift set.
It wasn't easy to find things we actually wanted. There were the obvious non-starters, like baby "entertainment consoles" that resemble the deprogramming seat in A Clockwork Orange. You strap the baby into an adorable little straightjacket, and then a collection of servos simultaneously spins and vibrates your babies while a rapidly flashing Elmo avatar shrieks musicalized cuteness. (Actually, it's a lot like the Carousel from "Logan's Run", except without the hope of eventual death by laser blast.) These products help calm your baby by shorting out its nervous system. I prefer a system with fewer long-term side effects, so when our baby gets a little colicky, I plan to soothe it with good old fashioned X. (Just like Mom used to take!)
The really surprising part was how many things there were that I couldn't even identify. Right next to the baby monitors (the weapon of choice for the guys down at alt.voyeurism.hiddencam) there was this kind of battery operated box, connected by tubes to two plastic cones that looked exactly like emergency air horns. There were a bunch of other tubes and connectors, and I came to the conclusion that this must be some sort of infant medical monitor, where you hook the baby to the tubes, and then if something goes wrong, it alerts you with a blast from the air horns. I told my wife that it's ridiculous how over-protective some parents are, and then she gives me this bullshit story where she says (get this!) that the air horns fit over a womans nipples and the box sucks milk out of her. Nice try, honey! Even if that were true, nothing but formula for my baby. If it's good enough to malnourish fly-encrusted third world babies, it's good enough for my child!
Anyway: Without a doubt, the best things in the store were the "Baby Einstein" products. These are a series of cds, books, and videos that teach babies how to be intolerably boring snobs before they can even talk! For example, there's Baby Shakespeare. In this DVD, a dragon puppet shows children closeups of brightly colored toys while Beethoven plays in the background and deep-voiced actors read poems by Yeats and Wordsworth.
Awesome! First of all, it's basically child abuse to not expose your infant to Wordsworth's immortal "Composed while the Author was engaged in Writing a Tract occasioned by the Convention of Cintra" and "The Column intended by Buonaparte for a Triumphal Edifice in Milan". I mean, shit. Those poemses was like "Bah bah black sheep" when I was a baby. (Well, they would have been. If my mother had talked to me.)
So that's great. The trouble is, Baby Shakespeare doesn't seem to contain any actual Shakespeare. How cool would it be for baby's first words to be "Out vile jelly!"? But Baby Einstein seems to want to keep my baby away from the darker stuff. Where's Baby's First "Ulysses"? Baby's First "Portnoy's Complaint"? How's my kid going to learn about that part in The Canterbury Tales where a guy gets his asshole burned off with a hot poker? (real translated quote: "Off went about a hand's breath of skin, the hot coulter so burned his butt")
Because it's not enough to be exposed to the classics. If my baby is going to be the infantile pseudo-intellectual prick I'm trying to raise, I need her to be exposed to all the mandatory undergraduate reading that I myself never actually read, but discussed endlessly my freshman year - while trying to figure out whether the girl I was talking to was coming on to me, or just vomiting.
There is a market niche to be filled. Thus, dear friends, I'm writing my own series of age-inappropriate baby literature. I'm proud to announce the formation of the Baby William F. Buckley® collection. With these books and videos, even your stupid baby can excel at those under-5 cocktail parties that are all the rage on the Upper West Side. And what better way to inaugurate the series than with the theater's greatest imposter: Samuel Beckett.
Here at Baby William F. Buckley®, it's important that your infant (or fetus! it's never to soon!) is exposed to the original text, even as we present the piece in easy-to-digest words and pictures. Any time you see a cartoon word bubble, you know that you are seeing the author's original words!
Without further ado, Baby William F. Buckley® is honored to present:
Click the link above, jackass
Are you edified yet? Well, remember parents, it's not enough to just read; comprehension is key! Why not test your infant's retention with these:
Discussion Questions
1) Name 5 differences that make Vladimir and Estragon entirely distinct, fully realized characters. If you can't think of any, you're right!
2) Does the relationship between Lucky and Pozzo remind you of your relationship with Mommy? Answer again when you start potty training.
3) For little boys: At any point did you feel like you wanted to kill Pozzo and marry Lucky? Get used to it.
4) For little girls: Did I see you playing Lucky and Pozzo behind the garage with that Garcia boy? You are never to see that boy again.
5) In what ways are you similar to the The Boy? None? Really? You don't think you're at all similar to the little boy who comes along uninvited into the lives of two people whose lives were fine, if increasingly predictable, and reminds them that all their plans are going to be put on hold, with no end in sight? That doesn't sound even the slightest bit familiar to you? Go to your room.
6) Write a sequel to Waiting for Godot where Vladimir and Estragon change their names to Mario and Luigi and become plumbers. Make sure that Mario and Luigi are transported to a magical mushroom kingdom where they spend all their time fighting turtles and collecting coins so that they can rescue a series of imposter princesses. Which story makes more sense?
7) Have you ever pretended to be impressed by a piece of literature or art because everyone expects you to be, even though deep down inside you think it's pointless nonsense? Congratulations! You're ready for college!
All I have to do is find a publisher, and I'll make a fortune! We can finally afford Elmo's Calming Baby Centrifuge (up to 2000 rpms!).
Wait... wait... wait...
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