I Could Never Be A Mother

It happened again.  The one woman with a small child sat next to me in Starbucks.

I don't know how they do it.  It's like the cat phenomenon - the fact that a cat will always go for the one person in the room who's allergic or just doesn't like cats.

And I dislike children.  I don't even like the word children - it sounds prissy.  Yet harassed mothers with their snot-ridden spawn in tow are drawn to me as if I exert some kind of twisted gravitational pull.  They'll sit down at the nearest table and the child will invariably stare at me, dribbling on itself, while I try to ignore the fact that it's clearly trying to devour my soul with its blank, watery eyes.

Sometimes, like today, the mother will look at this horrific tableau and think, "Oh, my offspring likes this cringing, uncomfortable-looking person!  Maybe she'll watch little What's-It's-Face while I go to the bathroom for two seconds of peace."

Because I have this crippling  compulsion to be nice to people, I agreed to keep an eye on the little death machine for a few minutes.

It was an excruciating two minutes and forty-nine seconds.

It chewed on a napkin and continued gazing relentlessly at me.  I kept edging away in little increments, trying to look at it only peripherally in case meeting its eyes proved fatal.  Sometimes it made guttural sounds, which I imagine were part of some kind of infant witchcraft.  The napkin darkened steadily as it absorbed the kid's no doubt venomous secretions.  A damp, evil smell emanated from its direction.  I held my breath.

At one minute and twelve seconds, the sodden napkin slipped from between its pulpy lips.  Its eyes widened, displeased.

Oh SHIT, I thought, and in a panic thrust the cardboard sleeve around my cup into its gaping mouth.  It accepted my desperate offering, gnawing on the cardboard like an ancient god on the bones of a human sacrifice.  Its teeth were little nubs, ghastly to behold.  Without the napkin shielding its chin, I could see that the skin there was slick with saliva, red, and chapped.  I repressed a shudder.

In all this time, it never averted its intent stare.  I strained my ears for the sound of a toilet flushing, hoping to God there wasn't a window in the bathroom the mother might have crawled out of.

When she did emerge to the strains of the "Hallelujah" chorus, I tried to act as though I was smiling out of pleasure at the drooling antics of the child and not out of sheer, overwhelming relief.  The hapless woman thanked me, grimly hoisted her dead-eyed burden into her arms, and as she left (and it was still staring at me over her shoulder), I internally patted my pockets, checking to make sure all of my soul was still there.

(Yes, I keep my soul in my existential pockets.  What do you use, a wallet?  Bah.)