CHILD OF THE CORN

There's a possible fly in the ointment of my plan to never have children...my wife is visiting her family in Indiana this weekend to see her new nephew for the first time (not her brother's kid, her cousin's--but she's super tight with her cousin, they're like sisters).

She's been making a few alarming comments lately about kids, but I've chalked it up to just female sentimentality (and maybe a bit of sisterly rivalry) over the new baby--I'm still 95% confident she doesn't want to have kids, but that's down from 99% before her cousin got herself knocked up.

This weekend can go two ways. The obvious--but not likely, I'm gambling--is that she holds the baby in her arms for the first time and falls in love with the idea of being a mommy, throwing away years of rational thought that's led her to the conclusion that she never wants to have kids. I fully acknowledge that's a possibility.

But the other, this is what I'm pinning my hopes on--the other possibility is that she sees the enormous amount of work and sacrifice that goes into caring for a little shitting & crying machine, and she multiplies that in her head by 52 weeks and years and years and years (OK, it'll learn to stop shitting itself, but the work and sacrifice obviously never stops--my wife is in all seriousness a very selfish woman, it's one of the many things I love about her).

I'm kind of gambling here by not going with her. If I were there, I could subtly manage the situation to my advantage, making seemingly offhand comments like,

"Man, when does Katie *ever* sleep?" (my wife likes her sleep...a lot).

Or "I guess you guys won't be doing any world traveling any time soon." (Katie & her husband travel frequently, and my wife and I love to travel basically more than anything else in the world).

Or "So it's basically 5 more years of this before he even goes to school?"

Or "So you haven't seen your friends in like 6 months, and no plans on the horizon?"

Or "Wow, they're going to have to really bite the bullet on luxury items like clothes and makeup and shoes and..."

Shit like that.

Why didn't I go? Um, did I mention they live in Indiana? Nuff said. It's this complete pissant suburb of Indianapolis, supposedly an upper middle class area; the houses are big and nice and everything, they'd be million dollar houses here--but man, let's just say you wouldn't be confusing it with Beverly Hills any time soon. It's, uh, sparse. I mean, I can see how other people want to live there, it's quiet and peaceful and cheap as hell to buy a house.

But I'm personally very uncomfortable in wide open spaces, I like...*density*. I like cities. I like hustle and bustle. But to each his own. Point is, there's absolutely nothing to do there other than fawn over the shit/cry machine and get my ear talked off by the World's Dullest Man (Katie's husband, with whom I get left alone frequently when we visit--a bigger negative to visiting than even the lameness of the state of Indiana itself).

So I decided to stay here, and just hope that the overwhelming amount of work, disruption to routine, and just general unpleasantness that is "caring for a baby" will trump that biological imperative she feels to create one of these bundles of unimaginable cuteness for herself.

I'm positive the forces of logic will win out in the end.

Well--very, very sure, at the least.

Fuck, maybe I should've gone.