[1558] in Humor
HUMOR: Birthday
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Tue Aug 13 10:26:25 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 10:20:07 EDT
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 17:36:11 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 07:05:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
Forwarded-by: Keith Sullivan <KSullivan@worldnet.att.net>
HERE WALKS A TRAVELER AND A POET
-- By Randy Shore
When Darcy told me she had cramps I immediately sensed that something was
up. It isn't that she never gets cramps -- most women do -- but being 8.99
months pregnant suggested to me that this was no ordinary woman's complaint.
So while she timed her "cramps" in bed beside me, it was only through sheer
force of will that I was able to go to sleep. While I snored loudly, my
turgid wife rolled in and out of bed to the bathroom, the living room, the
kitchen or any other place that seemed to offer comfort. None did. Only
when Darcy loudly divested herself of a poorly digested dinner and Dairy
Queen sundae did I wake my heart pounding.
Even though this was our second child, we were denied the full thrill of
realization, of anticipation and wee hours terror with our first. Keiran,
now two, was induced into the world with drugs due to a medical problem.
Since the same did not manifest themselves this time around, my wife and I
were left to wonder like neophytes when the happy moment would finally come.
So off we raced to the hospital stopping only for gas but not waiting for
our discount coupons, arriving at St. Paul's out of breath and Darcy's
contractions coming one over another. But when we presented ourselves to
the emergency room nurse we were asked to take a seat and fill out some
forms. Judging by the disinterested look of the clerk handing us papers and
making little Xs for initials I got the distinct feeling that Darcy could
have showed up with an ice pick sticking out of her forehead and she still
would have had to remember her social insurance number before being issued a
Band-Aid.
Eventually upstairs we went and by the time we got undressed and orientated
our nurse happily informed us that we were, in fact, about to give birth.
Not sure whether to be relieved or terrified, I set about trying to make
myself useful. However once I got a couple of Styrofoam cups of ice chips I
found myself entirely extraneous to the events taking place before me and
contented myself with looking on sympathetically. I barely got started when
our nurse revealed that Darcy was about to set a new land speed record for
childbirth, her cervix dilating at a rate that would engulf the room within
an hour.
The doctor arrived to find Darcy's core reactor at critical mass and Darcy
herself on the verge of a meltdown that, if it didn't level the entire
hospital, would at least take out the nurse whose hand was simply in the
wrong place at the wrong time. No one was the slightest bit ruffled by the
logging camp jargon flowing from Darcy's mouth and a mere five minutes of
hard labour produced a brand new baby boy who looked suspiciously like
Winston Churchill after a pomegranate fight.
As quickly as events had spiraled into adrenalized dizziness, all went calm.
We had a matching set of boys, everyone was healthy, in short, we had it all
... except a name. This boy was supposed to have been a girl. All the old
wives tests and indicators pointed to a product of the feminine gender, but
this child was clearly tackle-out and we hadn't prepared for this
eventuality. The old wives were aghast.
"Maybe he'll look like a name we hadn't considered," said Darcy.
"Well, he looks like Winston Churchill," said I.
"Let ME look," she said, less patiently.
But looking didn't help. So the next day we took the generic offspring home
and formed battlements. So serious was the discussion that even my
mother-in-law declined to meddle in the decision-making process. We were
getting nowhere when out of the blue I suggested James Dylan Shore. This is
a name, I made my case, that hearkens a Welsh hero (Dylan) a fine poet
(Dylan Thomas), a singer of questionable talent (Bob Dylan) and a great
explorer (Capt. James T. Kirk).
So it was done.
I am pleased to announce the arrival of a son, James Dylan Shore, a young
man whose talents cannot help but surpass those of his father. I'm tickled
pink and so is he.
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