Repost- Sympathy for the Haley

I'm reposting what I sent in to icouldkillher last week. So there!

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. Meanwhile, I can do a special dance and hear my lone, desiccated egg rolling around inside me like a burnt-out popcorn kernel. 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. We took drugs and made out with rockstars together. We had matching candy-colored vibrators. I was thrilled when she joined me in Portland, and I started polishing my hooker boots and dreaming about us growing up to be Cougars together, injecting each other with Botox and having hair-streaking parties.



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, and I offered to return the favor. 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 mewling raspberry-colored thing that I had to pretend was awesome, and whose fontanel she expressly forbade me to touch. I continued to call to chat and pretend that times were still good, but if my many-layered, deeply funny stories were more than ten seconds long, or did not center on her little homunculus, she tended to drift off. I told her about meeting George Clinton, and she said what an honor to meet the President.

President Rainbow Dreadlock. She became obsessed with introducing people to the baby, as if she was not essentially asking them to look at what happens when she has sex. I mean, I don’t go around forcing others to look at my rash!

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 and Corona with lime, but also I have marked it in my calendar with pictures of knives and blood drops. 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 their 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 horror and amusement of the adults inside. I swore never to return.

Elaine, please keep in mind that Baby G is beautiful and is probably awesome. I just can never meet her, because of my allergy to baby spit and formula smells. Just thinking about it makes my throat close up and I have visions of a tiny, pudgy-kneed Hitler.