Christmas Baybees

One of the front-page articles in the Xmas-Day edition of our local paper was about Christmas babies. Here are some of the highlights, along with my super-clever responses. (To save time, I won't start each comment with 'WTF?!' You can just assume it applies.)

The subheading is, "For those born on Dec. 25, birthdays often become afterthoughts for family and friends during the holiday turmoil."

Most people's birthdays are not of utmost importance to their friends and family, especially once the Birthday Boy or Girl reaches adulthood, as each of the people interviewed in the article have. It is confusing and painful, but usually family and friends have concerns and obligations that don't center around making you feel special.

"Christmas babies like Jennifer X soon learn they will generally play second fiddle to baby Jesus on Dec. 25."

Ouch! I can hardly imagine how devastating it must be to learn that you're not the most important individual on earth, even on your birthday! And to have some imbeciles treat you as any less important than someone worshipped by millions of people around the world must be especially agonizing.

"Adds Ms. X, 'The core family - my parents, my sister, my husband, my best friends - they always remember. It's on the outside that you get shorted, like at work. People are so busy that it often does get forgotten.'"

I suffer the same problem (though I was born in July, but whatever). Of course my family and close friends wish me a happy birthday, but not once have I been given a card or gift or even verbal birthday wishes by the janitor, the librarian, the girl at the checkout, the mail carrier...The list of uncaring, self-absorbed people just goes on and on!

"The thing that may bug Christmas babies the most is that birthday present wrapped in Frosty the Snowman paper. 'Please spend the $2.99 for birthday wrap,' Ms. X said. 'Your birthday wrap doesn't have Santa on it, and we would prefer ours didn't either.' [...] Many may take proportionate revenge at a later date. 'I always told my sister,' X said, 'if you give me a birthday present wrapped in Christmas paper, I guarantee that on your birthday, your gift will come wrapped in Christmas paper.'"

...cuz really, it's not the thought that counts. It's making sure that your stupid present has the correct wrapping. Hey, you know what I could do to bug this entitled bitch even more than wrapping her present in Xmas paper?

I'd save my $2.99 plus whatever the present would have cost, and just not get her anything.

You're too special for ...

You know the song that goes "I'm too sexy for my [shirt, car, cat]"? Well, I have changed it a little. I would like to dedicate this serenade to Marisol and Angela.

I'm too special for your rules,
Too special for your logic,
Too special for your reality,
Too special, so special, yeah!

Yes, the song sucks. It sucks almost as much as their sense of entitlement.

So what makes Angela so fucking special now? Well, apparently she was acting like a brat at a Christmas eve party, fell down, cut her head, and needed sutures. This makes her special because it just so happened that the party was at the house of the hospital's head of plastic surgery, so he did the sutures so that Marisol and Angela wouldn't have to spend their Christmas eve in the ER with the riffraff. There you have it, folks...Angela is truly a remarkable child because the laws of gravity apply to her! (If you just learned that you're way more special than you realized because you recall that you too have fallen or tripped, congrats! But you're still nowhere near as special as M and A...remember that.)

That's what I hate about you! - mothers of young children, cont'd

Your baby is great. I get it!

If you were in a hospital evaluating a random baby, and it followed you with its eyes when you moved, you would say that it meant that the baby's eyes and brain are healthy. But since it's your baby, the fact that she visually tracks a moving target means that she's a genius, precocious, destined for greatness, just like her beautiful, brilliant mother. All hail your baby.

Your baby is also so marvelously strong. You told me so when she pushed a box of index cards off my table and they scattered all over the floor. And when she was able to hold her head up. And when she finally learned to roll over. And when she learned to crawl. And when she was able to stay on her feet and move her legs while you supported her full weight by holding both her hands and moving with her. What do all these things have in common? ...The fact that every unimpaired baby also learns to do them (many at younger ages, even).

Marisol is a working mother. Did I mention she has a toddler? Isn't that fascinating? Don't you want to see pictures at inappropriate times?

Dear Marisol:

So, you felt that you should invite your brother to your departmental seminar. Maybe you are not aware that these seminars are considered professional presentations in which you discuss your research and the faculty and your peers evaluate and critique it based upon their professional opinions. You may have noticed that other students' families do not attend them. This is because your talk is not a ceremony, where Mamma and Daddy get to see people clap politely for you. It is a chance for you to get honest, expert feedback on your work. "The fam" are not experts. Perhaps you are not familiar with the notion of having professional, nonsocial interactions. That would explain why you plastered pictures of your toddler on your acknowledgments slide, even though I'm pretty sure she had nothing to do with designing the experiments, collecting/analyzing the data, or presenting the results. And it would explain why you feel compelled to drag her to all conferences, even when it's totally inappropriate. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the words "professional" and "appropriate" have no meaning to you. That's why I am not even bothering to actually communicate my opinions to you. 

Cheers! 

Jane

Sitting Pretty in the Shuttle

5 pm and once again I find myself perched on the edge of my seat, my right leg braced between the back of the passenger’s seat and the sliding door to keep me in place. My foot and  leg feel like they are going to be permanently deformed from the cramps  caused by having to spend the whole trip  pushing  against the floor with the balls of my feet. My right ass cheek is jealous of the left one because it doesn’t have any support; it’s standing room only for the right half of my body. But the left half is complaining too, because I can’t move a muscle or I will lose what little space I have secured for myself.  I can feel that despite the heroic efforts of the right half of my body, it is lower than the left half. In the window I notice that my reflection looks like a person with hemiparalysis, the affected side drooping while the other permanently tenses up.

And why am I in this uncomfortable position? Well, great question! It’s because I’m sitting next to Vicki, the 60ish woman who sits in the exact geometric center of the seat -  I guess so that her imaginary friend doesn’t feel cramped between her and the window. Really, it’s my best guess, because even though her ass is hella lumpy, she’s not that fat, and she has never put anything there (at least not that I have seen in 11 months of riding).  At least her imaginary friend is quiet, unlike her. She has an opinion about every fucking thing, and never hesitates to express it. She makes small-talk with the  driver, with other passengers, with the person at the other end of the cell phone, blah blah blah. If, perchance, the conversation dwindles – usually because the other individual wasn’t all that interested in it in the first place – she fidgets, looks around at what every other rider is doing (if they are behind her she does a 180 in her seat and cranes her neck like a hen), clears her through, and…starts a new, equally dull and meaningless , conversation. If others happen to be having a conversation without her, that is intolerable, even if it involves a rider talking on his or her cell.  She interjects her thoughts in a highly authoritative tone, similar to the tone a judge might use when somberly addressing the defendant in a criminal trial, as if each word was a solemn pronouncement of wisdom that she had carefully deliberated before choosing to bestow it upon us. Like the canned laughter in a sitcom, these weighty pronouncements are irrelevant and annoying, yet form a definitive part of the experience.