a luxury egg baby
The only thing worse than introducing a boyfriend or girlfriend to family for the first time is bringing that person back around the second time, because that's when jokes about having kids begin. Visit number one means everyone is on their best behavior, scooping soup in the proper direction and using polite voices like it's an audition for Great Gatsby. The family doesn't know if they'll ever see this person again, because as a general rule degenerates don't get a second date, and they want to do all they can to convince that nice girl or guy to stick around.
On visit number two, the relatives have seen proof that this person is either dumb enough to not recognize a snake in the grass or smart enough to look beneath the layers of expensive clothes masking haunting insecurities and has decided to take a chance either way. Parents, aunts, and uncles won't be able to resist a crack or two about grandkids, or how a shared sixth floor walkup might be hard to accommodate with a stroller in tow.
For those who don't know, the key line to brush off this line of inquisition is, "First we'll keep a plant alive, then a pet, and then no child until there's proof of life for those first two." But what most people forget during this address is that all those years ago, back in middle school, they couldn't keep a god damn egg in a strawberry basket "alive" for five days. That alone should be an automatic disqualification from ever having kids. It's time to talk about Egg Babies.
If, on the off chance home schoolers didn't have to do the Egg Baby project, the graciously hosted online, Duxbury, Massachusetts class assignment lays out the key points:
- YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR EGG BABY WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES (ed: ALL CAPS theirs)
- Your Egg Baby must be in a carrier ... [that] needs to include soft bedding
- Abuse will not be tolerated
- If your Egg Baby is left in "egg care" overnight, Egg Baby Protective Services will step in and you will fail this project
Those junior high Health class teachers were not fucking around when it came to their Egg Babies; it has to be serious when there's a Egg Baby Protective Services unit out there snatching up uncared for eggs like Humpty Dumpty's version of the Department of Child and Family Services. The unstated, though highly effective, goal of Egg Babies was to make kids so god damn paranoid about watching over an anthropomorphic chicken egg for a week that they made it a life priority to avoid teen pregnancy - so, the ends justified the means?
Think about the Haageocereus tenuis from Cactus Store LA as the most luxurious version of an Egg Baby possible. Except in reality it's a cactus that costs as much as a condo, so it won't be Egg Baby Protective Services that comes knocking it'll be Wells Fargo looking for a mortgage check. On the upside though, if parents or friends come over to find a quarter-million dollar, one of only 140 remaining in the world, plant shriveled and dead on the floor they'll never ask about kids again.
Price: $250,000
Genus & species: Haageocereus tenuis
Store: Cactus Store LA
Why: If there's someone actually reading this section looking for a persuasive essay laying out further Pros (because there are no Cons) of purchasing this cactus, please also consider directing a similar amount to this site's struggling writer after clicking "BUY." Owning this cactus is a bigger flex than a Lamborghini or Rolex could ever be, because the Haageocereus tenuis is the antithesis of showy; you can't take it with you, and at less than two feet long it's not ostentatious enough to draw eyes planted - literally or figuratively - in your driveway. It's also the perfect way to kill a boring conversation: the next time a parent pulls out his iPhone to show you pictures of his kid, bring out yours and start swiping through glamor shots of your cactus. That party trick alone might be worth the $250k.