old birth story ('07)

I was swimming around in my own food and filth for a while, and then suddenly popped out.

"Hey," said the greeter.
"Hey," I answered.

"Well, you've been born."
"I have?"
"Yup."
"That's cool...I guess."
"Hell yeah," exclaimed the greeter. "You're alive and that's all there is."
"Okay. Uh, what?"
"Life. You got one. You only get one. And so on."
"Oh. Okay, so what do I do now?"
"Anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Anything."
"Sweet," I said, mentally rubbing my pudgy little hands together.

After a while. I stopped. "Uh, like what?"
"Hmm?"
"What can I do?"
"All sorts of things. Eventually."
"Eventually?"
"Yeah, you really can't do too much right now. Cry, poop, eat, sleep...stuff like that is about it for the time being."
"I guess that's enough for now. It's gonna be hard enough to get all that right."
"Nah, it's a breeze. And you can get by without really mastering all of it. Nobody will blame you if you mess up a little bit, here and there, especially for the first ten years or so."

"I get the feeling there's stuff you're not telling me."
"Well, I can't tell you everything. There's a lot of stuff to know...some of it you'll need, some you won't. It's kind of learn-as-you-go situation."
"I can't help feeling a little suspicious," I admitted, "and overwhelmed."
"Well, don't worry too much about the overwhelmed part. There's people to help you."
"Yeah?"
"You parents, for two..."
"Who are they?"
"You came out of one of them."
"No!"
"Yup. That's how it works."
"Dude, that's pretty weird though. Am I gonna have people coming out of me?"
"Nah, you're a guy."
"What's that?"
"Well, there's two kinds of people: guys and chicks. They're mostly the same but there's some stuff that's different. For one thing, chicks have vaginas and guys have penises."

"Oh. What are those?"
"You see that thing right there? That's a penis."
"This?"
"That. Don't mess around with it too much."
"What, will it break?"
"Nah, but it will piss some people off."
"Oh. Why?"
"That's a tricky one. A lot of people think it should be covered up most of the time...with clothes, you'll get some of those pretty soon."
"Good, I was starting to get a little chilly here."
"Yeah, they'll dry you off in a second."

"So what's a vagina?"
"That's what girls have, pretty much in the same place."
"So what's different about it?"
"Well, a bunch of stuff. Mainly, it's more like a hole."
"Like this thing?"
"No, that's your butt. Well, yeah, kinda like that, I guess. Sort of."
"You don't sound too sure."
"I don't want to mess you up with complicated stuff right away. Anyway, you're gonna forget almost all of what I tell you anyway, so it doesn't really matter."
"So why tell me anything?"
"I don't know. Call this a literary exercise."
"What's that?"
"It's something that doesn't mean anything and didn't really happen."
"Oh. Why do it then?"
"One of the big things that you're gonna find out is that lots of times you do stuff just because you can. Or because it seems like fun at the time, or it might come in handy later."
"I don't get it."
"I know. Don't sweat it."

"Okay, so who's that dude?"
"Your dad. He's the guy and your mom's the chick."
"You need both of 'em?"
"Technically, yeah."
"What?"
"Well, a guy makes sperm and a chick makes eggs and you put 'em together and sometimes a baby like you comes out."
"Dude, that's twisted."
"I didn't design it."
"Who did?"
"Uh...I don't know. I guess nobody. It just turned out that way."
"I don't believe that."
"A lot of people don't. But it's probably true."
"How do you know?"
"Scientific evidence."
"What's that?"
"That's when there's stuff that proves you're probably telling the truth."
"Example."
"Okay, how many fingers you got?"
"What's 'how many' and what are 'fingers'?"

"Damn," he said. "See, this is all stuff you're gonna end up knowing sooner or later."
"Nah, I don't think it's gonna be worth all the trouble."
"Maybe not, but you gotta do it anyway."
"Why?"
"Because you're alive."
"So?"
"So being alive means you do stuff."
"Ah."
"And sometimes you need to do stuff so that you can do other stuff."
"Like what?"
"Like learning to count so that you know how many fingers you have."
"Oh."
"It's five on each hand, by the way."
"Really?"
"Yup."
"And how many hands?"
"Two."
"Wow. That's a lot of fingers."
"Not really."
"No?"
"Well, it's about the same for everybody. And ten's not that big of a number."
"Really? Seems pretty big to me."
"Numbers get smaller the more of 'em you know. Ten seems big now but wait 'till you see a hundred."
"Whoa."
"Yeah."

"Listen," I said, "I gotta tell ya...there really does seem like an awful lot of stuff to know and do. I'm not sure I'm really up to it. I mean, I can't even talk yet."
"That will take a while. Don't worry, you'll get help, just like I said."
"You mean like the chick I came out of and the dude that put me there."
"Right."
"Do they know everything?"
"Ha. You'll think so for a few years, but no, they don't know everything."
"Okay. So who knows everything?"
"Nobody."
"Nobody?"
"Nobody."
"Uh..." I tried to figure that out. "You mean there's stuff to know that nobody knows?"
"Well, yeah. You might even find something that nobody knew before you came along."
"That sounds pretty cool."
"Yeah, It's one of the best things there is."