Exciting news... I've become an adoptive gay parent, just like Paula Poundstone!

Maybe I should begin at the beginning. Earlier this evening, I started to feel parched while looking for topical links that I could add to my warblog, so I went to the liquor store to buy the ingredients for this great drink I recently invented called a Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized By Her Own Chastity (equal parts Liebfraumilch, grain alcohol, and ouzo; slowly pour in layer of grenadine and top with dash amyl nitrate).

As I was returning to my apartment, I heard the unmistakable cries of a baby, followed by the savage and frenetic barking of a feral dog, followed by a bloodcurdling shriek of physical distress abruptly terminating in a sort of liquid slurping thud, followed by a deathly silence. My mind immediately flashed to that movie with Meryl Streep -- you know, the one where she's exposed to radiation in a workplace accident and they're pushing her under the emergency shower, because that's exactly how confused and scared I felt just at that moment. Silk Stalkings, I think was the title.

But then I realized that the noise has seemed to come from the alley behind my building, and my heart leapt into my throat as I noticed that the iron security gate -- normally locked tight -- was wide open. Without losing an instant, I ran up to put the ouzo in the freezer and then immediately returned to see what had happened in the alley. As I trepidatiously crept around the corner, I felt something soft and wet under my foot, and swinging the beam of my flashlight down (I had gotten the flashlight while upstairs) I recognized the Rottweiler owned by a guy down the street.

"Dang," I said, "it's been turned inside-out just like a sock, it has." (In retrospect, that wasn't really accurate, because the fur was still on the outside, for the most part, but I wasn't thinking quite clearly.) Then the burbling sound of a contented infant caught my ear, and I noticed one of those plastic handbaskets that you get at the supermarket, from which the noise seemed to issue...

I think it's an Inuit baby, or at any rate from one of those cultures where they still swaddle children, as it was wrapped from neck to feet with motorcycle bungee cords, and under that, baling wire, and under that, duct tape. (I eventually had to soak it in acetone for a while to get the adhesive residue off.) I'm a little worried because the baby's genitals don't appear to have grown in yet, but other than that, he (or she) seems the very picture of vigorous health.

I've decided to call him (or her) Throbert Jr. (or Throbertina Jr.).

posted by Throbert | 5/29/2002 08:29:00 PM |

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