a day in the life of john (2006)

6 am - Wake up. Stretch. It's all downhill from here.

6:01am - Check personal e-mail. Not a peep from my friends. Thank god for Internet trolls.

9am - Commute. Drive by Metamuville store, cringe at the owners' patheticly self-promoting sign: "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Ava is sweet, And our doughnuts are too."

11am - Try to scare up a lunch date. "If I take a lunch, that's just that much later I have to work, and I won't be able to pick up my baby from the complete stranger," they say.

Noon - Lunch alone.

1pm - Chat with Mom #1. Her baby is really, really unique and endlessly fascinating. The child likes crinkly sounds and bright colors, everything goes right into her mouth, and she sure is a handful! "But enough about my kid," Mom says. "What do you think about my kid?"

screaming baby2pm - Have the identical conversation with Mom #2. "She just makes the cutest expressions!" she says.

3pm - Have the identical conversation with Mom #3. "She just makes the cutest expressions!" she says. Well, someone's gotta be wrong, I grumble. She gets cross. "Validation, please. A real friend would pay unremitting homage to my baby," comes the reply, or maybe that's just what I heard. "YOU WILL PAY HOMAGE!"

3:30pm - My co-worker cancels, at the last minute, the meeting for which I traveled 160 minutes and paid $25 in gas and ferry fees. "My kid has a thing."

3:31pm - Plan Football Weekend such that Bubba's wife and two kids can fly with us and visit family. Otherwise he can't go, you see.

4pm - Receive e-mail with baby photos. My oh my, gosh almighty and yes indeedy, that is just, um, let's see...the...cutest baby ever? Ah, you're welcome! And your baby's so distinguishable from the rest! Yep. Yep. Say, what do you think about Iran enriching uranium? A scary, can't-win situation, that. "Now that I'm a mother," the reply comes, "Those sorts of things really bother me."

5pm - Meet Mom #4 and appendage for dinner. The baby shrieks nonstop, and little is done to make it stop. Everyone in the restaurant glares at me. They want to kill me. I want to help them. Mom shrugs. "There's nothing I can do about it." I ask her if she's ever heard of the technological innovation called "babysitters." Or "condoms," for that matter. I'm told I'm rude. What? I'm sorry, what did you say? All I can hear is your little birth defect being extra miraculous.

5:57pm - Drive past Metamuville store on way home. The sign now reads: "Ava says 'ice cream and I are cool treats!'"

6pm - Play cards with Mom #5. She asks about the baby of Mom #4, even though she's never met the people and never will.

7pm - Quality time. Cigar. Tawny. Hot tub. Alone.

11:35pm - Save me, Letterman!

11:36pm - Letterman mentions his son Harry for the first time that evening. I realize that nowadays, I can't tell Letterman from my friends any easier than I can tell my friends from one another.

11:51pm - Letterman asks vacuous supermodel about her kids. She takes the hint to ask him about Harry. They conclude that their kids make just the cutest expressions. After five minutes of brain-gooifying discourse about sippy cups and table-walking, the sweet, sweet release of unconsciousness comes. Or maybe it's death. If I'm lucky, it's death.

6am - Damn.