I think I might buy a Honda Civic.

I don't really need a new car right now, but Honda Civics are incredibly inexpensive. They're like $58 a month with a hundred dollars down. Something like that. Maybe I'll get it just to have it be the car I use for only one single purpose, like an eccentric rich person, and use the other cars for regular, varied purposes. That's it...it'll be the car that I use to go get french fries at fast food restaurants. Usually when I do my daily errands I'll embrace temptation and whip through a Jack in the Box or McDonald's drive-thru for a little thingy of crisp, delicious fries. These invariably cause the interior of the car to reek of fries for a day or two, particularly if it's been rainy and the windows have been up. A new Honda would be just the thing. Liz wouldn't get annoyed, and it's probably healthier for the baby if I use a separate car for buying french fries.

First words

Most babies' first words are something sweet and nice, like "mama" or "dada." It makes sense. A baby spends most of its time with someone who refers to themselves as Mommy or Dad, and finally comes to mimic the expression. This weekend my parents came over and we looked at a few baby albums and then they dropped the bombshell on me: my first word.

It wasn't a rich epithet, or an effeminate "thimply fabulouth!"

It wasn't even "baba!" or "papa," both common contenders.

My first word, according to both my parents and attested to by an overlooked entry in my baby album, was "K-Mart." Apparently pronounced something like "kay-'Maht."

It may further amuse you—since my pants are currently down—to know that I worked at K-Mart for three years during high school. I suppose we aren't the complicated evolutionary matrices that Nova programs would make us out to be. As a tot I was endlessly wheeled around the bargain bins of Sebastian Kresge's low-caste vision, apparently forming a deep and lasting bond with the cheap white laminate tile floors I would one day pace, and the red vest I would one day assume.

Not only did the house I grew up in burn down, but my K-Mart has since become a Gottschalks. Maybe John Cusack needs a writing partner for Grosse Pointe Blank II. I have some ideas.

Sunflower seeds

Recently I have been tucking a few sunflower seeds into my cheek while working. I cannot think of another snacking item that is so socially divisive as these seeds. They constantly require one to noisily spit small bits of wood from one's mouth, and contain so much sodium as to make one's face bloated and unseemly, so that in just a matter of days one bears resemblance to a George Washington who's gone a round in the ring with Tyson. Particularly if one wears a baldiwig and silk knickers, as I do.

No one enjoys my new habit of eating sunflower seeds.

Chicken Stock, Chicken Stock

Man, why did I make ten quarts of chicken stock when the kitchen is already full of dirty dishes. And how did the kitchen get full of dirty dishes when all we've been eating lately is takeout food? Today for lunch was sandwiches from that new Bullpen deli, and dinner was Greekish food from Santorini, that decent joint on Laurel. Somehow all the surfaces in the kitchen are covered with recyclable bottles and cans, dirty mugs, and trash. How does this happen? Maybe it happens because when you are asleep a new baby can use her small fingers to reach just far enough into your sleeping ear to press the Reset button, much as we do to a Palm-sized device or Texas Instruments Speak-n-Spell with a paperclip.

A new baby unwittingly invents several hip-hop jerks, gestures and other nightclub moves which need only minimal refinement before sexual men and women can use them on the dance floor. Among them:

1. Do The Cry
Stand in the middle of the dance floor and just scream until you get so agitated that you hyperventilate. Here come the (police) ladies.

2. Every Body Get Startled!
Babies have a "startle" reflex which causes their arms and legs to shoot out when startled. Next time someone you like walks past, "Get Startled!" by immediately jumping up and making your arms and legs into a big capital X. If you simultaneously crap your pants, then so much more the baby are you.

3. Everybody East Side West Side Heyyy-ohhh Heyyy-ohhh
Babies do that thing with their hands like gangsters do, where they use their fingers to form letters signifying gangster signs or affiliations (Blood, Crip, etc). Next time you see a baby startle, closely watch the way they crinkle and contort their hands. You may be able to catch whether they are a Blood or a Crip.