Yesterday I was sitting at my computer, trying to think of what project I should embark on now that I've written the
best novel in the world and launched the
greatest blog directory in the world.
Perhaps, I thought, I should write a non-fiction book filled with a
variety of non-fictional facts on one of the many subjects on which I
am an expert -- a book on graceful sentence construction, perhaps.
As
I sat there pondering these things, my seven year old daughter wandered
into the room, holding a softball and wearing her little pink baseball
glove on the wrong hand. "Daddy," she said softly, "Will you play with
me?"
And that's when I realized that what was really important to me wasn't
awesome blog directories or
hilarious novels about the adventures of an AWOL angel on the brink of the Apocalypse,
but rather my relationship with my children. "That's it!" I
exclaimed. "I will write a book on parenting!" And just like that, I
started to write, years of parenting wisdom flowing from my fingertips
like ink pouring out of the tentacles of an Octopus. "Go play with
your brothers," I shouted at my daughter. "Daddy's working."
She
started to cry, of course, but I think that's because I had momentarily
forgotten that she now only has the one brother. Anyway, she left,
which is the important thing.
CHAPTER 1: BECOMING A PARENTThere
are literally hundreds of parenting books out there. In fact, there
are probably thousands, if you count all those copies of the "What to
Expect..." books that everybody tries to sell for a quarter at garage
sales. So why does the world need several thousand more? Well, for
one thing, most of these so-called "parenting" books assume in chapter
1 that you're already a parent. That's ridiculous! That's like a
fishing book assuming that you already have a fish or a woodworking
book assuming that you already have wood!
This book not only
doesn't assume that you have children*; it assumes that you have no
idea how to go about getting them. This book assumes that you are
borderline retarded. This book is like parenting for dummies, except
that I can't use that name because it's trademarked. It's like
parenting for dumies. Anyway, let's not dwell on how retarded you are,
but rather start learning some of the stuff that I have to teach you.
WAY #1: Grow them in your abdomen. We'll
call this the "barbaric" method. It involves injecting semen into what
scientist refer to as the "vaginal concourse," using a turkey baster or
penis. Unfortunately, the odds of this method succeeding are
astronomically low. First of all, you have only a 50% chance of being
female. Second, for this method to work, you have to be "ovulating,"
which sounds pretty unlikely. Third, you have to have either a turkey
baster or a penis. Fourth, if my wife's doctor is to believed, you
have to use the right kind of semen, no matter how cool you think it
would be to have half-monkey babies. I mean, who can figure all this
stuff out?
WAY #2: Adopt them.It's deceptively
easy to adopt children. But here's the catch: many of the available
babies are actually addicted to cocaine or are Chinese. Often they are
both. And a lot of times the orphanage won't tell you that they're
addicted to cocaine, so the baby just cries and cries until you finally
think to give it some cocaine. And then, sure, it's happy for a few
hours, but then the baby crashes, and you have to keep scoring more
cocaine, which gets expensive. Also, no matter how much cocaine you
give it, it will still be Chinese.
WAY #3: Steal them.This
is probably the best way to get children. In the olden days, this
method was called "kidnapping," but these days many people simply refer
to it as "kidnaping." I'm not actually sure which one is correct.
Generally you double the consonant at the end of the word when adding
ing, but not always with words that end in p -- for example,
gossiping versus
handicapping. I think it's really between you and your God which one you should use.
Okay,
so now you have children. Stay tuned for Chapter 2: What to do when
the Chinese babies try to get your baby hooked on cocaine.
*Although, in the interest of full disclosure, chapter 14 does assume that you have a lamp shaped like a goat.