Bad Baby
My friend’s baby head-butted me the other day. It was an accident of course, so I didn’t call the police or anything. This time. Mind you, it just goes to show you that all that nonsense about babies being wickle human beings is precisely that. At this age they are no more than mindless cretins, and I mean that in a nice way. Come on, if babies had any sense of self-awareness or indeed any cognitive insight whatsoever, they would surely be thinking: “Oh my God, everyone else is fully clothed and I’m sprawled on my back in the nude, peeing!”
But they don’t. They just laugh it off. In fact scientists have proved that your sense of the ridiculous doesn’t become fully formed until one day in your late thirties, when after a few blank moments you suddenly recognise the middle-aged tit in the baseball cap reflected back at you from the window of Dixon’s.
I’m not very comfortable around babies, which is precisely why my friend plonked one into my arms. Parents love to scare the daylights out of childless people this way. They say things like, “Just keep an eye on young Rooney while I do the laundry.” And while you’re thinking to yourself, ‘ok, this can’t be all that different from making sure the scones don’t burn on top,’ they follow up with a list of conflicting instructions and a car load of equipment the likes of which you’ve never seen before.
“Now, this is the steriliser. Give him his first feed at four, his second feed at half-three, then lay him down but don’t put him on his back. Or his front. And for God’s sake don’t let him turn over in his sleep.”
By now you’re ignoring the instructions, which you can’t possibly begin to understand in any case, and simply concentrate on your own growing terror instead. “Why not? What happens if he turns over?”
“I said don’t let him turn over!”
“I didn’t! I mean I won’t! What do I feed it on?”
“The milk in the tin. Three heaped tablespoons per pound of baby, plus half an hour extra. No, hang on, that’s how you cook a chicken. Forget it, just order a pizza.”
“Really?”
“No, you moron. Read the instructions on the tin. Feed him again at nine, then at six, wake him up before you go-go, and don’t forget to burp him.”
At this point you are quite beside yourself with fretfulness. “Burp him? What the f-?”
“Just pick him up and hoist him over your shoulder.”
You have a sudden recollection of watching a dwarf-tossing competition on a late-night documentary. It’s probably not altogether dissimilar, you reckon. “Should I put some blankets or something down? You know, something soft for him to land on?”
Your friend stares at you as if you have just unzipped your flies and begun a satisfying root through your own underwear. “Not all the way over, you prick. Just put him on your shoulder and pat his back until he throws up on your jumper.”
So you see why I largely avoid any possible contact with babies. My friend had this baby yonks ago and I’ve been making excuses not to see it ever since. To be honest I was hoping it would be fully grown by now. When he suggested that it was time I was introduced to his offspring, I sent him a text message that said: Gr8T! C U both in pub at 7. I hav sum old shirts at home, wot size collar is he?
Apparently it doesn’t work that way. The baby he brought over was enormous and yet, amazingly, still a baby in so many ways, specifically those ways that result in unshiftable stains.
“There you go,” he said, plonking something the size of a space hopper into my reluctant arms. “What do you think of young Rooney then?”
I didn’t know what to think. I just smiled politely and muttered a neutral, “Nice,” which is the precise same reaction my friend gave when I proudly showed off those new Gortex boot liners I got from the hiking shop.
Young Rooney gaped at me with huge, doll-like blue eyes. He gave a sweetly imbecilic smile, decided he no longer wished to control the muscles in his neck, and swiftly fell forward into my face.
“Awe, he’s kissing you!” my friend squealed.
“Nide,” I said, holding my bloody nose.
