Repost- Sympathy for the Haley
I’m reposting what I sent in to I Could Kill Her last week. (update: a local comic had a blog with her best friend for about a year, now I see that it’s a spam site.)
Barbie portrait by Miss Aurora.
My name is Virginia. I’m in my thirties, because I screwed up my original plan, which was to OD in a nightclub bathroom at 25 with panties around my ankles and a wet cigarette in my mouth.
I am constantly going to baby showers and being made to endure foul acts, such as sniffing and identifying various brands of chocolate melted into diapers, which is against the Godiva convention. I have, on some level, become inured to it. But nothing hurts like your first time.
My first time was Alisa. We met in Dallas, Texas, where we took drugs together, went dancing together. We had matching candy-colored vibrators. I was thrilled when she joined me in Portland, and I started dreaming about us growing up to be Cougars together.
Then the day came that she told me she was expecting. Worst of all, SHE HAD DONE IT ON PURPOSE! I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I pointed out to her that a baby is like a wild animal that will shit anywhere they happen to be. Babies are terrorists, and their weapons are noise and tears.
I tried to put on a brave face, but I don’t know how to do that, so I complained and felt sorry for myself. One day, she gave birth to a thing that I had to pretend was awesome, and whose fontanel she expressly forbade me to touch. I continued to call and pretend that times were still good, but if my stories were more than ten seconds long, or did not center on her little homunculus, she tended to drift off.
The breaking point came when her baby was approaching a year old. I will never forget baby’s birthday, because not only is it Cinco de Mayo, a day where I express my love for the Hispanic culture by drinking margaritas. That day, I stopped by the house to say hello and found a party in progress. A party I had not been invited to. A baby party.
The house was insanity. There were people putting food in their pants, smashing M&M’s into the floor, and talking about babies. A woman asked how I knew Alisa, and I said, I’ve known her all my adult life, how do YOU know her? Oh, I see. Three months of play group.
The words dripped from my mouth like toxin. I ran out of the house crying, tripped over something shaped like Snoopy and fell, sprawled on the grass in front of the picture window to the amusement of the adults inside. I swore never to return.