Baby’s ‘R’ Us and We’re Insane So That Must Mean That Babies ‘R’ Insane

I am not a shopper. I don’t shop. I instead purchase goods I require as quickly as possible so I can then get the FUCK out of the temple of consumerism that is the average American retail store. If you gave me a choice as to whether or not I had to spend a random day shopping or working, I in all honesty would choose the latter. In fact, there’s a lot of not-really-all-that-much-fun stuff I’d rather do than shop, just as:

Coal mining

Ditch digging

Paint scraping

“According to Jim” watching

Frankincense myrrhing

Turpentine drinking

Ostrich fellating

Et.al. I also have a tendency to freak out at how expensive everything is. In fact, it’s kind of a problem. I’m TRYING to be better about it; I really am. I’m only 33 years old and I’m already bitching about how expensive socks and andirons and smoked turkey sausage is. In another 20 years, I’ll never leave the house again lest I swallow my own head at the price of paper clips.

So when I was asked by my wife if I wanted to go to Babies ‘R’ Us with her to finish off our registry, my initial internal reaction was something like this:

“BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha---ha---ha--- ha---ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . hoo . . . hoo . . . *ahem* . . . whew . . . hoo . . . just gimme a sec here . . . hee-hee . . . hoo . . .”

**5 seconds of silence**

“BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA . . .”

But in the interest of, you know, wanting to be a decent husband and father, I actually said this:

“Do you WANT me to go to Babies ‘R’ Us with you . . . ?” the unspoken and understood end of that sentence being “…because if you do, it might be your funeral.” Meaning that after roughly 12 minutes of Babies ‘R’ Us-ing I might in fact become Baby Is Me and pitch my own very temper tantrum right in the middle of the breast pump aisle, which is wildly inappropriate for a man my age.

“If you want to come with me, sure.”

To the untrained ear, it might sound like some of that there reverse psychology but my wife and I don’t play that. You want me there, ask me. You don’t, don’t. Leave it up to me, then leave it up to me. She left it up to me.

So I accepted. Why? I’ll never truly know. Probably because she’s done like 98% of everything involved with “stuff for The Kid,” so I felt I should throw in my two (per)cent(s).

We’re pulling into the parking lot and the first thing out of my mouth once the store comes into view is, “Oh my God. It’s HUGE.” And it was. I felt like one of those people in “Independence Day,” mouth agape, staring up at this huge looming spaceship, like, “Oh, well. I’ve had a nice run.”

So my wife says, “What? You’ve never been to a Babies ‘R’ Us before?”

“Uh, no. Why on earth would I have been to a Babies ‘R’ Us before? What POSSIBLE reason would I have to come here?”

If I wasn’t married and had to give a baby shower present, I’d probably give cash. Or a coupon for one free rubella inoculation at Immunizations ‘R’ Us. Or, shit, I don’t know… a piece of fucking candy or something. (Do babies like candy? Guess I should read that parenting book…) But I certainly wouldn’t subject myself to Babies ‘R’ Us.

Though here I was. Poised for entry.

First impressions: it’s fucking HUGE. Oh, I said that already? Well, fuck you. You think it’s big from the outside? Well, just go inside. It’s even BIGGER with all the shit everywhere. I don’t how that’s possible but they manage it somehow. They also feel compelled to pipe in the worst music ever recorded. I actually heard Bon Jovi’s “Have a Nice Day.” No shit. I’d rather have been ear fucked two ways by Raffi and the Wiggles than the crap they had on in there. (Although in 6 months time I’ll probably offer to suck Richie Sambora’s dick rather than listen to the Wiggles one. More. Fucking. Time.)

Second impressions: did I mention how big it was? Okay, okay. Sorry. (it’s really big tho)

Thirdpressions: first thing was pacifiers. Pretty simple, right?

**said in best Samuel L. Jackson voice, like Jules in “Pulp Fiction”**

“Wrong, motherfuckah! DEAD wrong.”

There was a wall of pacifiers. A wall. Not a small wall. A big wall. A huge wall. A motherfucking immense wall, like what I imagine a tsunami looks like to a poor, unsuspecting Indonesian villager. (Is it fair and proper to compare what is tantamount to a very unfortunate and sad watery death sentence to my experience with the Wall of Pacifiers? I say yes.) The wall MUST have been at least 5 feet high by a good 40 feet wide (!) lined, top to bottom, with pacifiers. All different kinds. All different colors and shapes. Maggie Simpson would have pissed herself with glee. 200 square feet of the finest pacification technology (aside from opium) known to humankind. God bless America.

They really only carry two BRANDS of pacifiers though. One which looks really fancy and nice, you know…the kind you’d buy if you really loved your kid and wanted them to be successful and not grow up to be a porn star getting fucked on film by two guys wearing executioner’s masks. The other was less nice. We got the latter brand. Why? Because we already hate our kid. Well, that AND because the former brand uses more plastic packaging than was required for all the parts for the fucking Death Star. Not only were the little nipple portions of the pacifiers themselves covered in this non-recyclable plastic but the whole fucking 2-pack was also encased in this non-recyclable plastic shell.

Why is this necessary?

“No. I’m drawing a line.”

**I literally mimicked drawing a line in the “sand.”**

“We’re getting the other ones.”

My wife agreed with me. Doing this whole magilla as Green as possible is pretty important to us so we’re going to have to continue to make choices like this one.

Next were the newborn toys some of which, I have to admit, were pretty awesome. I played with them myself and registered for a couple. So if you’re my friend of your reading this and you have elected to purchase our kid one of these toys, you can sleep at night because it’s gotten my Seal of Approval®. Most of the toys, however, were just annoying. Does EVERYTHING have to make cutesy sounds? Guh. How about just dumb a ball of clay or something.

Onto the diaper bags!

Yet another wall. Of bags you carry diapers in. Shitty diapers, I imagine, sometimes. It’s very important to make a statement: what kind of person shall I represent to the world as I transfer crap from one place to the other? Now, look…I’m not completely cynical. I understand that there are important considerations with respect to purchasing a feces transport system: comfort, price, accessibility, durability, size, shape and—yes—color and style. But there must have been 60 different bags for sale. And that’s nothing. Why not set yourself up with something like THIS? You’ll be the fiercest mommy on the block! Work it, girl! What's that smell? It’s the smell of FABULOUS!

After the diaper bags, it was onto the stroller / carrier / car seat / base do-si-do. I swear, I think the people who work at Babies ‘R’ Us should run the fucking country. Do you have ANY concept how complicated this shit is? Really. The carrier fits into the stroller (sometimes) and locks into the base that you keep buckled in your car (again, sometimes.) That way, you don’t need a separate car seat (sometimes.) Unless, you know, you WANT a separate car seat or you want a stroller than doesn’t come with a carrier. In that case, you don’t need a base (I think.) But you’ll also have to get a separate carrier unless you want to use the car seat as the carrier (which I imagine would be silly). The fact that we had generously been given a carrier/car seat by a co-worker of my wife’s caused us (meaning “her”) to attempt to figure out whether or not “X” carrier/car seat fit into “Y” base and “Z” stroller. Plus, my wife’s SISTER has a kid (and another one on the way) and as a result has a base already in her mother’s car, so the idea was to have everything the same so that my mother-in-law was only required to drive around with one base in her backseat, to fit all the various accoutrements. Well, the guy we asked knew the answers to all these questions, right off the top of his head! I was completely impressed. (As it turns out, my mother-in-law will have to ride around with 2 bases in the back of her car. As I said at the time, “Well, it’s not her friends are piling in the back to go hang out at the beach or anything, so it’s probably not a big deal.”)

After the strollers, we checked out the burp cloths (some of which were unbelievably adorable) and some other shit I don’t remember because I’d swallowed my own head. There was one in particular that had me ooohing and aaahing it was so damned cute. I spent WAY too much time online hunting for a picture of it. Alas, I couldn’t find one. The below will have to do for display purposes:

Bear on Bear Action

I assure you, the actual one I saw at the store was roughly 10,000 times cuter and 10,000 times less lame/gay.

But two bears as friends? Of COURSE they’re friends! They’re of the same species! You really wanna teach a kid about friendship? I suggested my own burp cloth alternatives:

Hell, a bear and a SALMON? Now THAT’S friendship.

“I love you, man. Bear. What? Well, then FUCK YOU, TOO!!!”

**they maul each other**

“You’re so fierce.”

“No, YOU’RE so fierce.”

**inhuman and terrifying growling sounds**

Bottom line: there’s a LOT of shit you can buy for your kid exacerbated by the fact that women, in general—you know—like to shop. Plus we live in a country where if you aren’t offered roughly 83,407 options for something to pick up shit with the terrorists have apparently won.