Working in cafés can be wonderful. A clean, well-lighted place with good coffee and relative quiet can be inexpressibly fantastic. I’ve made the rent and written books in cafés. On the other hand, close proximity to others under the influence of caffeine can reveal a certain darkness in the human condition that would otherwise be difficult to notice.
People get bilious. A baby fires his diapers and the café hazmat expert springs into action. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t worry,” says the teenager in the green apron. He’s down on his knees wiping up baby’s spillage with a rag. Mom takes a second before she moves. She says: “Yes. Well. I appreciate your help.” Mom’s friend—an almost identical copy, right down to the French twist and the yoga pants—crosses her arms and looks down at the boy. How do babies contain so much waste? Half of the café pretends it didn’t happen. The other half is smiling. Baby is so charming.
Mom and her friend finally decide to help. They sigh and wipe the drippings off the stroller, the floor. This is a normal thing in their world and mom executes her duties without getting a smudge on her yoga pants. From a certain point of view, this, I know, is admirable. But still, baby contains a gallon of fecal matter and mom contains a gallon of meaningless cooing. How does this happen to a person? These women are in their 30s. They seem oblivious to the fact that they have been speaking very loudly in close proximity to others about absolutely nothing for the last 45 minutes. Who raised them?
I am irritated, yes. I am a misanthrope, maybe. Timon of Yosemite. But I feel bad for the parents of the kid with the crew-cut who’s still down on his knees, apologizing for someone else’s shit. His choice, but still. My inner Nostradamus tells me that if he doesn’t quit this job soon, he’ll be doing that for the rest of his life.
Of course, I don’t have kids. It’s easy to pass judgment when you aren’t constrained to be a guardian of public health because baby has a bowel problem. But what about a pediatric gastroenterologist? I don’t know. Could an expert address this? Maybe mom already covered that angle; though, it seems to me baby would feel a lot better if he wasn’t bathed in his own waste. (Later, when mom goes out to a Lexus RX 350 with chunks of gold glued to the side, I will think this again in less charitable terms, wondering whether dad couldn’t take a day out to see about the health of his boy. But such are my prejudices. We should all foul our diapers and own Lexuses.)
I’m at the big table –the one for the losers who come to the café to work and read quietly. The era of socially egalitarian coffee shops ended with the rise of the Starbucks beast. There is definite class polarization here. Corporate culture and proletarian workforce self-segregate at the little tables by the windows; liberal democrats, professorial types, senior citizens, and other undesirables lurk at the long table in the back. In-between lingers the great murmuring maternity, the guardians of our future, a triple-parked fleet of strollers, an ocean of yoga pants, and the inevitable cloud of post-Yogalates hormonal dismay.
Being a mom is hard, yeah? My mom thought so and I’m sure I didn’t make it easy for her. She was a good mom—in my opinion, the best. And even though my parents stayed married (until my mom’s death from cancer in 2009, after which my father descended into a second perpetual adolescence), she was the one who took care of me on a daily basis. So maybe this is more of a personal moment for me than it seems on the surface.
Is it crazy to think parenting should be a group effort? Sorry guys, bringing home a paycheck doesn’t absolve you of having to mop up the Schmutzigkeit. We don’t want junior to have a lilliputian colostomy before he’s old enough to enjoy solid food. It makes me sad. It’s wrong. And I think just because you can reproduce and have money doesn’t mean you should.
Next to me, a 40-something guy with white shoulder-length hair sniffs and clears his throat. His long-sleeve is buttoned all the way to the top and he has a pair of square rimless glasses (spectacles?) at the end of his nose. He looks over at the baby in disgust and shifts his Kindle two inches away from that side of the room. That’s okay, I saw a different young mother do that with her baby when she looked over at our table. Germs. Competing bacteria. Everyone’s a vector. Everyone wants to eat your child and poo in your laptop case.
Why can’t we just get along? The answer is that we can—as long as everyone stays in the small box they were given at birth. Born in a box: live there, paint the walls all you want, inch a tiny mirror over the top edge to see what it’s like in the other boxes, sure. But try to climb out and everyone will destroy their diapers.
Said incontinent baby is now squealing in hideous misery while mom is sipping a latte and laughing with her friend. I really hope baby grows up to run with wild horses over the hills. You can always hope.
The kid in the apron has brought out a mop and bucket. Mom and friend ignore him.
“I’m sorry,” he says for the fiftieth time.
Yeah, me too.
