Digital Cable and the 5 day old Bundle of Joy
One night I was idling flicking through the hundreds of useless channels I now get with digital cable, when my nerveless fingers hovered over the channel up button and I paused for air. There was a woman laying in a hospital bed holding a baby, with a man sitting by her side. They were both fawning over this newborn, rubbing its cheek and whispering softly to it. The baby peacefully slept through the cooing and cuddling when alla sudden the woman started loudly wailing into its shell-like ear with real anguish on her stricken face, giving me reason to further hold off on the changechannel button. This baby is STILL sleeping and it is now being passed to the man by the weeping woman. The man put the baby in a tub of water and gently washed it when it dawned on me..this baby wasn't waking up because it was sleeping the Sleep of Death. Now having never seen a dead baby on a TV show before, I was quite fascinated by the proceedings and cracked myself another beer and settled in for the duration to see what would happen next. Well, not since the *Baby Roo Memorial Page* have I been so amazed at the lengths parents would go to for their deceased sproggen. For the next 5 days this poor dead baby was passed from person to person and bathed many times and changed and cuddled and treated just like a real live baby. It even looked like it was wearing diapers (leaking orifices?). Through the miracle of TV I was witness to 5 DAYS of the parents and family and friends coddling this thing. Four of those days were spent in the hospital where the STAFF let them have the carcass in the room with them, then it was bundled up to be taken home to look at its new room, where it was 'shown' its toys and blankies and things. I have left 2 lb. pkgs. of hamburger out for a few days by mistake and it didn't smell pretty after 2 days. A full term baby has to weigh 6-7 lbs at least. Judging by the beautiful shade of violet its soft plump white flesh was turning after 4 days, it would be getting a little high by then, and although I love babies as much as the next guy (no) a LIVE reeking little bundle of joy is bad news (pass that baby on), but a ROTTING FLESH who-left-the-trout-in-the-sun reekiness is a little much. I didn't get to see if it was stored in the crisper at home, but I ASSume the house was beginning to tell their sad tale to the neighbours. Finally the eggplant-in-training was laid to rest, all the while the mother in hysterics. Everybody took this scene in stride as she had been doing this for 5 loooong days, and after laying it in a neat white coffin and feeding it to the flames of eternity, we presume the long slow mourning process began. Jump to seven months later. The mother still had all the baby things in its room and went in there regularly to 'sniff' the baby clothes. She had set up a memorial table with candles and pictures of the corpse in repose in her loving arms. Alas things didn't turn out well for the woman. After 7 months of it, I guess the husband had had enough and left her, with an empty crib and a broken heart.
|