My wife dropped me off at work today because she needed our car to take our baby boy to a doctor visit. I packed a lunch for myself and left it in the refrigerator. Isn't that the worst? This is even more of a problem than any other day because where I work on Mondays has nothing nearby to walk to for lunch options. For those of you not from the Chicago area, the neighborhood of Devon street near Damen Avenue has a milieu of cultures ranging from Nigerian, Pakistani, Indian, and you name it. I found a middle eastern restaurant, and I must admit it didn't look very clean and didn't smell too great either. I think I may have actually given it a shot, but then I saw a sign that was happily announcing "Camel meet on Fridays!" That actually scared me off, so snuck out and walked another few blocks to a McDonald's. My stomach was upset from the synthetic food, so I may have been better off with the camel meat.
Why not on Wednesdays? Hump Day!
My tummy was in knots as I worked my way back down Devon to get back to work in time when an elderly Caucasian gentleman walking in the opposite direction stopped to talk to me. Only he didn't appear to be speaking English. I listened hard to see if maybe it was just a thick accent and actually English. I told him, "I don't know the language you're trying to speak to me in." He said some things and I think I heard "Bosnian" in there somewhere. So I said, "Yeah, I don't speak Bosnian. Sorry." Maybe I just have a Bosnian look to me? Or maybe if he sees a white guy in the area, he just assumes Bosnian? Whatever the case, it's too bad I don't speak his language because he seemed very excited about the prospect of conversing with a fellow Bosnian buddy.
So, like I mentioned in paragraph one (if you're still reading), the wife and I have a baby boy now. When Mrs. Noisewater was very, very pregnant we went to a Chicago Cubs game together. She met me after work at a nearby bar and told me that some random drunk had just stopped her on the street and said, "That's a boy!" and pointed at her belly. I think people are going with the old wive's tale that if you carry your baby all up front and not in many other places, then that means it's a boy. So, we left the bar to head into the game and another random drunk homeless man said, "You' havin' a boy!" Well, the drunk homeless prophets were right; He's a boy, and he's beautiful.
They say it's good to talk and to sing to your babies, so he already has some go-to songs that we sing to him. One is "Beautiful Boy" by John Lennon. I think that is a song I would have thought was totally corny in my pre-daddy days, but now I absolutely love it.
The other song is "He's Misstra Know It All" by Stevie Wonder, only I sing "He's Mister Cutie Man." Yes. Mister Cutie Man. You read that correctly. I am no longer the least bit cool, and I fully accept this as fact and as a way of life.
