Two Boobs: That’s What They Take us for (pt 1)

I am SO angry, I can hardly see saw.

I realized, recently, that life is a perpetual struggle. It occurred to me while I was trying to put a plate with English muffins and jam on an already overloaded footstool. As I spent three minutes alternating between setting things down and catching others as they fell, it occurred to me that, it isn’t me, EVERYONE’S existence is a never-ending can-can dance of irritation, skirmish and ultimately surrender… like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube that has been soaked in peanut oil…

Don’t get me wrong. Infancy is a pretty sweet gig. No pressure at all. Because you don’t have to do ANYTHING… and if you DO something, SUDDENLY you are a GENIUS. And, if anything upsets you, you simply cry and someone comes by and pushes a pair of boobs into your face. This is a lot like how I spent my early twenties and one night when I was forty-six. It is bliss and no one with half a brain would ever want to live differently…

…but, inevitably, you will become a toddler. It just seems like a good idea because all the other people in the house are walking and they seem to be having a SWELL time. Decades later, you learn that the only reason your father walked so much was, if he relaxed for any length of time, someone would’ve harvested his organs. Moms were in constant motion when I was a little kid; but, that was because they knew they were going to die in childbirth in a few years so they needed to build up some karma before that happened. I consider it my sacred duty to warn babies NOT to become toddlers; but, just when I seem to be getting through to them, someone comes by and pushes a pair of boobs into their faces and I am summarily forgotten.

You see, you can be the smartest baby that ever existed; but, the instant you start to walk, you are immediately the dumbest biped in the house. And, I mean REALLY dumb. Do you know how many young children aspire to be astronauts, despite having neither the engineering skills nor the mathematical training to even be considered for the program? So, you play… and play some more… Because, what else are you gonna do? Calculate the centripetal forces associated with destabilization due to a missing rocket fin? Yeah, I’d like to see you try…

And, you get GOOD at playing… so good, you put it on your resume along with your ability to defecate into a potty. You start meeting younger children who aren’t as good at playing; and, you begin to realize that adults are terrible at it as well. For a time, playing is something you are the best at; then, your parents sit you down and tell you you’re going to a municipal building for eight hours a day to stare straight ahead while someone talks to you about things you’ll never be interested in if you lived to be a million. At this point, you start to notice a pattern.

So, you go to school, reluctantly… which is the best way to go to school… adds a much needed tension to the process. If you are a good student, the classroom isn’t a bad place to be. Constant positive feedback. The adoration of others… I assume. If you aren’t built to be a good student, the next twelve years will be a living breathing all-singing, all-dancing Hell. Your primary job will be to make the life of the good students a living, breathing, all-singing, all-dancing Hell. This is what biologists refer to as symbiosis.

It doesn’t matter which group you are in because you eventually learn the game. And then, puberty comes, kicks over the board and hides the dice. And, you have to finish school with only half your brain; because, the other half is handling the conflict between your body’s mad urge to reproduce and society telling you what a bad idea THAT is. It’s fairly easy to stay on society’s side and you try not to have children until you develop some massive crippling neuroses that you can pass on to them. At least you THINK you can hold out; but then, someone pushes a pair of boobs into your face and you’re done for. But, NONE OF THAT matters because you are about to hit the big leagues: Adulthood!

Freedom! You are finally getting out from under the thumb of that fascist you call “dad” and that anarcho-communist you call “mom” and getting out on your own. You’ve got a sweet sweet job that pays you mostly in French fries… so you won’t be buying a house anytime soon… or renting one. And, that one bedroom downtown is pretty much out of your reach… as is the loft in that adjoining county that smells like cat-pee. You manage to rent a room along with three vegans and an animal rights activist to be named later; but, later never comes because they vote to kick you out when they notice a combination taco on your breath, although you keep the right to visit the compost heap once a week for a year.

Two Boobs: That’s What They Take us for (pt 2)

Part Two Here.