I'm beginning to think I am missing some sort of gene that all other women possess, the one where you see a baby and immediately delve into spurts of "Oh how CUTE!" and "What a beautiful baby! My goodness gracious!" Am I a cold inhuman beast? Probably. The more I think about it, the more I draw the conclusion that I some kind of non-girl anomaly. I can't cook, cleaning is not my favorite pastime and as the title of this entry so clearly suggests, I'm really not all for kids either, which makes me an ambiguous blob in a sea of nurturing, caring, sweet instinctual mothers and mothers-to-be.

Working at a grocery store has stifled any urge whatsoever to procreate. Kids smell. They spit up, wet themselves, drool all over everything, and they want things. They want EVERYTHING, and when they don't get it they scream, kick and cry. It might be appropriate to blame the parents for a child's manners or lack thereof, but still, kids seem to ruin lives. Once you have a kid unsightly stretch marks invade your body. The kittens begin to claw down the drapes and your hips are never the same, or so I've gathered from watching many a plastic surgery special on TLC. And what's all this business about putting your kids' needs before your own? Why does everything have to revolve around kids? It wasn't too long ago when children were made to work on farms and peddle newspapers on the street but now they need "opportunities" and "enriching activities." Carting your grubby little offspring to peewee croquet does not make you some kind of extraordinary hero, so get over it and stop covering your minivan with lame stickers the PTA sent you. I'm really hoping a genuine brand of maternal instinct will kick in soon so I can stop faking those smiles I dish out to pesky children who dance around and make faces and think they're oh so funny and precious while their parents drudgingly shove groceries into an environmentally unfriendly paper and plastic combo. Come to think of it, I've never really seen any happy mothers inside the store; they all look frazzled and at their wits' end due to whatever moronic stunt their child is pulling this time. I've even had a few overjoyed parents tell me never to have kids, and I'm not even lying. Not like they had to tell me twice.

And am I the only one whose heart isn't warmed when I hear the blood curdling shriek of an infant? Infants have the ability to wail at an alarmingly high pitch for a lengthy amount of time and unless that thing popped out of where God split me I don't want to hear it. Parents come into the store with screaming children constantly and think it's cute and natural to continue on with their shopping while their diabolical spawn cry for attention, food, a diaper change, or a nasty combination of the three. Take it outside.

The only benefit I can see to reproducing is having a guaranteed baby-sitter for when I am old, blind, and need my own diapers changed. And if they lock me in a nursing home they're out of the will.