And it sounds every bit like this:
The only downside of having the birth of my child magically erase my name from the familial shitlist—where I have languished for years, happily—is that it automatically placed me back on their ‘people to email every stupid joke, chain smile-letter, totally made up product/scam warnings, precious life lesson things could be worse story, cutesy pictures of babies and puppies’ list.
When I called T, my only friend with small kids, a few days before little G was born, and quickly blurted out “I haven’t had the baby yet” when she answered the phone (in case she thought it was THE CALL) she said, confidently, “Oh, I know.” I asked her how she knew, she answered, “Because if you’d had the baby I wouldn’t be hearing from you. You’d be in The Hole.”
Let me give you a brief tour:
The Hole is a place where a phone may be less than a foot away, however it is physically impossible to pick it up. The same is true for your water glass, the burp cloth, the plate of food some kind person left you…pretty much everything you need, or would like to have or use. You experiment with teleportation at first, when that fails you settle for burn-a-hole-in-it staring; your new hobby.
There is no daytime or nighttime in The Hole, nor is there awake or asleep. There is awleep and slawake and other names you invent, sleep deprived and burning stare-holes into things, cackling like the Kookaburra…because in The Hole “slawake” is HI-larious.
You do not bathe in The Hole, you don’t make it to the bathroom much either. This creates one of those self perpetuating problems in respect to your number of visitors, which, not coincidentally, dwindles down to zero around day two.
Until you’re provided with pre-made, fully cooked, unwrapped and/or plated, completely ready-to-be-consumed food one can manage with one hand (if you’re lucky), there is no eating in The Hole. Also, there’s no drinking anything which requires boiling water or needs to be prepared with a machine, or which has a cap, pull tab, or safety seal…or needs to be poured. Putting your face underneath a running tap and/or swigging from an opened carton is the preferred method of hydration in The Hole. When you are forced to endure more than ten consecutive hours of screaming, no matter which hours in a day (see: slawake), you swap the bottle from which you swig—generally one whose origin is in the citrus groves in Florida—for a bottle from the vineyards in the South of France.
Although you are free to go, it is nearly impossible to leave The Hole; so you rarely do. Conversely, very little from the outside world makes its way in, and you are quickly rendered completely ignorant of everything. You hear tidbits—someone called “K-Fed” is now being called “Fed-Ex” Oh, and there was an election of note or something—but it’s all so much shadow on a wall, nothing ever clear enough for one to make head nor tails and then muster up an opinion, or a shit to give. Soon you revert, a kindergarten version of yourself, no idea what the grown ups are prattling on about, only able to weigh in when the topic switches to something you recognize, like, you hear the word cake, so you yell “Cake!” excitedly in a fit of recognition, announcing for all both your new IQ and dessert preference.
And time warps and shifts in The Hole. It’s supper by the time you’ve gotten around to assembling your breakfast, which makes being in your robe at nightfall more appropriate, anyway. You have to start getting ready for the dog’s evening walk at noon, a doctor’s appointment full day before. And when you do manage to accomplish something in the time-warp that is your day—brushing your teeth, washing a few dishes-- it’s the most impressive damn thing any human being has ever done. Seriously! Something you should receive a medal for. Something to call your friends and brag about!
And you would, if only you could reach the blasted phone.