by My Wife

"YOU'VE JUST GOT TO HAVE A BAAYYYYBEEEE!"
- "friends" of Elaine Benes from Seinfeld

"We've just found out that babies sometimes come in Twos!!"
- From a real baby shower invitation

"You're parents upon your birth said 'Oh! What a treasure!" It ought to have been buried."
- A Schoolyard taunt

December 11th, 2003

The quotes are mine but I'm taking a backseat to this one. My wife has had this in her craw for quite a while now. It would be suicide for me to stop her - Vikar

This is something I have wanted to get off my chest for sometime now. I am sure there are many, many women out there who feel the same way.

Let me set the scene.

It has been a peaceful day and all is right with the world. Then I go to the mailbox. Hmm….junk mail, bill…OH NO!!!! The envelope is hand addressed, usually pink, blue or some other fluffy little colour. You open it.

ARRRGGHHHH!!!!!!!

It came from people I've never heard of.

“Honey, who is Suzie?” I ask my husband.
“Who?”
“Suzie. It says ‘A shower for Suzie and John.’ I have no one on my side named Suzie or John.”
“Hmm… Well, my mother has a third cousin named John…”
“Do we know them?”
“Well, he may have been at my christening, 37 years ago.”
“Right. Unfortunately, I believe I’m having my toenails removed that day…”

Tell me, why do women have to suffer through these things? At what point did someone say “Let’s send out cutesy invitations, with little pink umbrellas and a nauseating rhyme. We’ll only invite women – even if it is for the man’s childhood buddy, whom he has not seen in 20 years. So what if the woman never even met these people! We’ll then have women get a list at some ridiculously overpriced store and buy expensive presents and come to an event where they'll endure several hours of tedium while watching someone else open gifts.”

The women I work with seem to feel the same. We help each other come up with valid sounding excuses. (The aforementioned toenail removal was actually debated, but our husbands wouldn’t let us use it. Husbands are no fun.)

To begin with, no one enjoys their own shower. It is planned by people who should know you better, and usually do not. Mine was a disaster. All I wanted was a back room in a local pub. Small, lots of alcohol. Instead, it ended up in my future in-laws house, over 60 miles away from all my people. Most got lost, many did not come. And I knew almost no one.

I also wanted it to include my future husband. Anyone who knows me will tell you kitchen appliances and I have barely a nodding acquaintance. There I was, holding up some complicated looking item, saying “Oh…thank you for the … uh …. thingy…”

My friend Leslie was smart. She planned everything herself, with strict instructions to her mother. And, her shower was the only one I can say I ever had fun at. And even then, my other friend Lori smuggled in a tiny TV so we could watch the NJ Devils playoff game.

Who decided it is fun to watch someone else open countless gifts?

I recently heard a good idea. Someone I know was forced to go to a shower. She said that the gifts were unwrapped, on a table, so that the bride-to-be could spend time with the guests, and no one had to sit and watch while hearing:

“Oh, look! She got another blender! This one has three speeds!”

And then there are the words that strike fear into the heart of every childfree woman in America: Baby Shower (key ominous sounding music). There is not enough alcohol in this or any universe to help a childfree woman through this event. There is nothing in the imagination of Dante that exists in his circles of hell that can even come close to it.

It’s bad enough listening to birthing horror stories that rival the scar comparison scene from Jaws. But try listening to toilet training and breast feeding. Yeah, I could listen to these stories for…nanoseconds. And if the bridal shower gifts are foreign, baby shower gifts are from an entirely different planet. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a medieval torture device called the “breast pump”. I still have nightmares.

Then – oh, then – comes the inquisition.

“So…when are you having a baby?”
“I don’t want children.”
“Oh, of course you do!”
“No, I don’t want children.”
“Sure you do. All women do.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“There is an overpopulation problem in the world as it is. And I don’t particularly like children.”
“Oh, you would once you had them.”

I love that logic.

You would once you had them. These are the same people who try to get me to eat meat, even though it has been over 20 years since I touched any. Doing so could possibly kill me.

The baby discussions never end well, and there really is no way to get out of them aside from stating I've donated my ovaries to science. And it doesn’t happen only once. Ohhhh nooooo! It continues.

Each and every woman makes it her personal duty to force the joys of motherhood on me. Remember the episode from Seinfeld? “Ohhh, but you’ve just got to have a Baabbbaaayyy!” I have attended roughly two of these excruciating functions, and that was two too many. I have hit my threshold, and stand firm – never again.

There is of course a certain type of woman who lives for these things. You can spot them immediately. Their presents are always impeccably wrapped with millions of little curlicue ribbons. And they are the ones squealing while each and every gift is opened.*

They are also the ones who insist on making those ludicrous paper plate hats.

Women must start banding together. These things must be stopped. Most people getting married today already live together, or have lived on their own before, and therefore already have everything they could possibly need. And mothers-to-be usually can count on their families for either hand-me-downs or whatever else they require.

I have gotten to the point where I blatantly lie. I hope they'll stop inviting me. Or, I don’t respond and pray they think I've died. Then the female cabal that runs these things might swipe me off of their “permanent shower invitee” list.

They may just forget my existence, leaving me free to open my mail without fear.

* - Okay, so I have actually used Christmas wrapping turned inside out for a shower. After all, the wrapping is shredded anyway.