After I get married and have a baby, my wife will soon, in a justified fit of rage, murder me .  She’ll be inconsolable when she realizes that I took our newborn to a park and returned with someone else’s baby (or some sort of animal).  It will happen.  It’s probably something every parent fears but it never actually occurs.  However, for me it’s utterly inevitable.  When babies are tiny, I cannot tell the difference between them.  They all look the same.  They all have tiny faces with tiny noses, little hands with baby fingers, wear ginormous diapers with pictures of Barney, are bald or look like they’re balding, and have no idea how to walk or read poetry.  How anyone can tell the difference between babies is beyond the mind of someone with even my unparalleled genius.

   I, however, have devised a unique plan to make baby-spotting-woes (and consequently my painful demise) a tortured worry of the past.  Besides using the obvious leash to maintain a constant, albeit pet-like connection with your baby, or by gluing a GPS unit to his forehead, there is a promethean method that utilizes only a marker and your baby’s face.

   I plan to draw a beard on my baby’s face.  Its simplicity is mind-boggling!  With this method I’ll never lose a baby in a crowd.  Since he (or, even better, she!) will stick out like Shaft at an albino convention, I’ll be able to spot him a mile away.  How many babies have beards?  Just mine, and possibly yours!

   I think it’s best to get creative with this idea.  Use washable markers because you may be in the mood to draw different types of beards each day.  Sometimes you may be in the mood for a goatee, sometimes muttonchops, sometimes a Rollie Fingers’ mustache, or even an Abe Lincoln beard (you’ll need some cottonballs and glue for that one).  You can also get really creative and use all the different colors to make your baby look like he tried to eat a rainbow.

   When your wife first learns what you did to your baby’s tiny, scrunched-up face she’ll go batnuts crazy.  However, once she realizes that for the first time since the baby’s birth you 1. Brought home an actual human, and 2. Brought home something that is genetically related to you, she’ll be ecstatic and so enamored with you that she’ll sprint out of the house to buy you a box of 4,000 Crayola Markers so that you can color your baby’s face for the next 30 years.

   …Either that or she’ll run to a lawyer’s office for a divorce. But hey, whatever, you win anyway because now your baby has a goatee.  

 

   Ever heard of a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii?  No?  Well, I’ve learned a bit about it from  Cracked.com and other sites, and it’s almost awesome.  Apparently half of the human race is already infected with this brain parasite.  It’s a common parasite found in cats that ingeniously finds it’s way into rats.  Sounds normal?  Yes.  BUT, once a rat is willingly infected, since the parasite masquerades around as a “good” parasite and thus is obviously welcomed by the rat, it then begins to take over the rat’s brain.  It leaves the rat completely healthy and normal-looking, but controls the rat’s brain and behavior.

   As tests have essentially proven, these infected rats will kill themselves.  Their behavior changes and they will offer themselves up to cats as a meal like you would offer a silver platter full of juicy beetles to Timon and Pumba.  

   So, how does this effect humans?  Tests have proven that there is a strong relationship in humans between schizophrenia and Toxoplasma gondii.  Also, being infected with it changes the personality of humans [turning them into zombies], and pregnant women who are infected tend to give birth to babies with schizophrenia.  Have you ever heard that women, while pregnant, should avoid cat-litter at all costs?  Well, that’s the reason.  They will give birth to zombies.

   The other day, as a friend pointed out to me, cat-people are insane.  Everyone knows that anyone who owns more than one cat is crazy.  It’s a pretty well-accepted fact.  The more cats a person owns the crazier he or she is.  That, being the subsequent conclusion, is also an obvious fact.   I don’t personally know too many (or any) cat-people, but from the numerous ones I’ve seen on TV, I can be sure those facts are true.

   What does this all mean?  People who own cats are no longer in control of their brains; the parasites are in control… or are the cats in control?  Really, the cats are probably in control since the parasites come from cats and force the host to submit to the cats’ desires.  So if half of the world population has essentially become zombies controlled by cats… what is the cats’ next move?

   That is why I have a dog…

…and why I am not human.

    For years I’ve had to suffer the wrath of not having an afro. It’s not easy for a ton (actually, 5) of reasons.

   1.  I have to wear sunblock on my face because I don’t have an afro.  If I had one, it would shade my face from the murderous sun, but alas, I have to create my own shade by wearing a hat or putting on sunblock.  An afro would be so much cheaper than a hat, too.  Plus, sunblock smells like… sunblock.  The smell of it makes me a want to take a shower in boiling acid to burn the scent off my body and out of my nostrils.  Why do I hate that smell?  Who knows.  When I was a child I probably almost drowned in a puddle of sunblock or something.

   2.  I have to wear a helmet while bikeriding.  I’ve always said that if I had an afro, it would be huge, but how big does an afro have to be to function as a helmet?  Mine would be so big that it would protect my skull from all falls, collisions with signposts, hail, bullets, earpopping soundwaves, bombs… everything.

   3.  I have to carry a bottle of water everywhere I go.  I’m always thirsty.  If I had an afro, I could just stick my head in a bathtub (or a pool) full of water and soak it all up to carry with me.  Then whenever I get thirsty, I could just put a straw in my hair and drink.  I’d never have to stop to drink!  I’d be like a camel, but a mini, bipedal, afro-wielding version.

   4.  I’m tired of carrying things in my pockets.  My wallet, my keys, candy, other stuff.  If I had an afro, I’d just toss all that stuff in there.  My hair would be full of candy and credit cards.  It would be like a convenience store, but even bigger and much more awesome.

   5.  I’m also tired of getting haircuts. Sometimes I cut my own hair for fun, but it never comes out right and I look like I stuck my head in an angry shredder or a drunk Edward Scissorhands attacked me. 

   If I had an afro, I’d never trim it.  I’d let it grow forever, until it takes over everything.  My life would be my afro, but I would be okay with that… because what more can you ask for than a giant afro?

So, if you’ve got any tips on how I can grow an afro, let me know.  This dream to grow an afro isn’t some new, ephemeral, ridiculous, weird, or even useless and impractical goal.  It’s real.  It’s life-changing, and has been a goal of mine for over 9 years.  Please help!