I Can Barely Take Care of Myself, Jen Kirkman [the false prince txt] 📗

The waiter tried to flirt with us but we let him know that we were more in the mood for bitching and maybe some crying on the side.

“They make me feel so bad about my decision,” I sniffled, and worked up to a nice bawling sob. “Not because I have any regrets about not having kids, but I feel like my life [sob] would be easier [snuffle, heave] if I could just [gulping breaths] fit in with everybody else.”

Sharon was already pissed on my behalf. She’s this tiny little four-foot-eleven comedian who doesn’t want kids either and she was pissed on her behalf too. “You don’t have to fit in with them in order for them to be able to talk to you. You should have said, ‘Fine, why don’t you have another kid for me if you want another kid on this earth so bad?’ ”

“I’m just so sick of feeling like such an outsider!” I twirled angrily in my chair-hammock.

Sharon tried to talk me down by getting all “angry Wendy Williams Show audience member.” “This bitch Eileen is miserable and she knows it. Misery loves company. She wants you pregnant because when she sees that you’re not—she forgets that she had options and it makes her question her decision. You’re gonna have some hot guy sucking on your tits later instead of some baby, okay?” Sharon tried to give me a snap, but her hand got caught in the web of her seat.

“Sharon, no hot guy is sucking on my anything tonight. I just want to go to bed.”

Suddenly I had an inspiration. “It’s like the word ‘queer,’ you know?”

Sharon agreed wholeheartedly. “Yeahhh. Totally. It’s just like that. Wait. How? I don’t get it.”

“Well, I used to use the word ‘queer’ because I’m from Boston and we used to say that word, meaning ‘stupid’ or like ‘someone who likes being in the church choir instead of smoking cigarettes in back of the rectory.’ But my gay friends said that word offended them and so I stopped. They said to me, ‘Why is it so important to you to be able to use that word?’ And guess what?”

“What?”

“I realized that it’s not important for me to use that word. And I want to say to these women with kids, ‘Why is it so important for you that I have a kid? Why is it so important for you to spend your time at a party questioning my life choice?’ ”

My voice started to break. I was so tired from pretending not to be offended at the party. I was holding back tears. If it’s not socially acceptable to not have a baby—it’s definitely not socially acceptable to cry like one in your refried beans.

Sharon comforted me. “Jen, it’s okay to cry. Wait. Wait. Not yet. Wait until the waiter circles back. You want him to see that you’re upset. He might bring us more chips.”

I decided it didn’t matter that there were no chips left and ate some guacamole with a spoon.

My tears turned to indignant passion. I made a declaration. “Sharon, I think that childfree by choice is the new gay. We’re the new disenfranchised group. People think we’re irresponsible, immoral sluts and that our lifestyle is up for debate.”

Sharon agreed. “That’s genius, Jen. Genius!” She started writing on a napkin. It was so wet it ripped. “Ah, fuck it. I’ll remember what you said. Something, something . . . the new gay.”

We burst into laughter and then let the tears stream down our faces. Sharon said, “I don’t want to make you more upset but I have something to tell you.”

“What?”

“I saw a BABY ON BOARD decal on a car today. I was trying to pull up beside her but she wasn’t noticing. I had my window rolled down. I was all ready to say, ‘Hey. This isn’t 1985 and nobody gives a fuck.’ ”

Sharon knew this was something that I loved to hate, including those cars that have the decals that indicate Mommy, Daddy, Timmy, Jill, and the family dog. I also can’t stand MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT bumper stickers.

I’m glad your kid won a spelling bee or gets good grades or that you love being a soccer mom or that you’re proud of your kids. Do you really have to put it in bumper-sticker form? Is any kid going to be on a therapist’s couch years from now saying, “My parents clothed me, fed me, tucked me in at night, and read me bedtime stories, they paid for my college education, but there is a bumper-sticker-size void in my psyche and a decal-size hole in my heart. I wanted everyone who drove by us on the 10 freeway to know that my mom loved me!”

When I was growing up my parents would have been embarrassed to have bumper stickers on their car that announced their love for their kid. Also they hated bumper stickers. “Jennifah, those are so hard to get off and they immediately decrease the value of the cah. Do not go putting one of those Wham! bumpah stickahs on there. When you get your own cah you can deface it any way you like.”

Congratulations. You are proud of your Cub Scout. I assume that if you have kids, you’re proud of them, so if you keep talking about how proud of them you are . . . maybe you doth protest too much? And by the way—while you’re busy picking out bumper stickers about Troop 79, make sure your son still wants to be in the Cub Scouts. Maybe he wants to do something else like be a brooding drama club kid or take tap dance lessons after school. Cub Scouts is kind of queer.

UNLIKE THE LOVELY pissed-off Sharon, some friends of mine (and professionals whom I pay to hear me whine) ask me whether I couldn’t just humor the moms like you do with Scientologists to get them to leave you alone. Couldn’t I just tell them, “Sure,