Stuck Uppa Baby

My sister wants a nine hundred dollar stroller. I have spent nine hundred dollars on non-essentials at one time exactly once before. It was to take a final college course in order to graduate. The issue was my own fault. I was blessed enough to have my parents pay my way for college. So as a thanks I refused to finish a pass/fail rock climbing class. I went to each class, that wasn’t an issue. I even did the weekend event where I was required to climb an actual rock. I stuck my hands on a natural rocky hand grip and yelled to my instructors that I felt a cobweb. I asked what I was supposed to do. To my horror they didn’t immediately lower me down, but instead told me to still use the hand grip. I used the hand grip and felt the cobwed germs on my hands for days to come. Yes, I did all the requirements, save for one detail.

Years after graduating I was meeting a friends new boyfriend and his roommate. The roommate looked at me and said “you look so familiar” and he looked familiar to me as well. We had our “Ah-hah” moment when he said he worked at the University Rec gym checking students in. I must have seen him almost every day for four years.  At JMU I wore makeup every day without fail even to the gym and didn’t gain more than three pounds in four years of college. My image was at the time as important as my major. What does this have to do with rock climbing? The last requirement of the rock climbing class was that I spend six hours, yes six, climbing the faux rock wall. In my gym. In front of people. They might as well have asked me to eat carbs on a first date. How dare they expect something so vulgar.

 The wall was the center of the attention, positioned right next to the weight room where all the men lifted in cut up frat t-shirts with protein powder shakes besides them.  If they thought for one second I would have my ass exposed like a baboon to all my 15,000 peers, or really a select group of 2000 or so who felt fitness was more important than class, they were wrong.  I skipped all six hours of required wall time in utter vanity and instead choose not graduate. Yes. I needed one class to graduate on time. All my finance classes were done, I just needed to finish electives.

 So to graduate I had to suffer through a month long online business HR class where my butt remained hidden. I didn’t have the money and I wasn’t about to tell my parents I needed money because I didn’t want my size 2 thighs to be ridiculed.  So I borrowed $900 for my online class from my sister (not the stroller sister).

In hindsight I know literally no one would have judged me. The men would have thought “ ass” and probably enjoyed it and the women would have at worst thought nothing at all, or compared themselves to me. So instead I spent my borrowed money on a class and worked two Craigslist jobs to pay back the debt. One job was a Nascar girl standing next to a car handing out beer cozies and the other was pet sitting. I earned the money in about two weeks and put up with my mom nagging me that I was wasting post college life lounging (studying) on my laptop.

Two weeks ago I bought a winter cape because the sales man said it looked cute on me and joked I should stand in the display. It was $400 dollars. I think. It may have been more and I lied to myself. At this point I genuinely don’t even know.  I didn’t even stop there. I went to two other shops and bought a t-shirt and some tea.

This blog post started out as a cry against my sister wanting a ridiculous $900 stroller. And it is absurd. It can seat at least two babies and has a stand so your child can stand and ride along all so they can remain incompetent even later into life.

I’m also pretty sure you want to exhaust your kids as much as possible or at least encourage exercise but what do I know, I’m not a mom so let that kid ride along.

 It’s a first time stroller for sure. All the new mom’s will fall into a trap and think it’s the best due to heavy marketing campaigns and wanting to keep up with the Instagram mom’s who were sent the stroller for free but just gush about the clearly unnecessary features like leather handles and hydrophobic cover. I know my sister and when her son is born she will be thrilled. And tired. The girl likes a good 8 to 12 a night so I pray this baby boy loves sleep as well otherwise she may not want to need a three person stroller. The stroller weighs 30 pounds, which may not seem like much, but when you have a human strapped to your chest that you want very badly to not squish feable extended arms won’t be able to maneuver that too well. It would be quite a feat to heave that into an SUV while tired.

And normally I am for quality over quantity any day. But I’m more willing to replace things that are covered in vomit and poop. After pooping myself several times due to an insane illness I realized some things you don’t want to wash and reuse. As a frequent airport traveler I see parents lugging enough gear to support a small refugee camp for a single baby. Despite having a baby cage (pack and play), stroller, car seat carrier, and floor mats for their kid, the baby is generally just being held by one parent while the other guards their hoard of shit like Smaug on top of his pile of dragon gold. And they look about as happy as Smaug. Exhausted and dead.  No one needs that much stuff. Little Babies have been born at least a few billion times with great success not being placed in the Ferrari’s of a stroller.

But maybe this is all a bit of fear. A baby is a huge life changing event. You’re going to fall into traps and want what everyone claims to the best. Perhaps you just have to discover that marketers know this, they exploit the fact that you want your tiny little you to survive and thrive so you need a bedazzled stroller loft with air conditioner leather interior and healing crystal shock absorbent flubber tires that spin 370 degrees. Perhaps it will chant at your little one, has and realign their aura and provides the appropriate feng shui to make your baby happy. But it probably doesn’t. Your kid just needs love, love from you, and your family. And support, for both the baby and the new parents.

I for one will not fall into marketing traps. No. I will stand tall in my new cape and incomplete knowledge of rock climbing and walk away from silly vain purchases being secure in myself and what I really need. First stop on this walk is Sephora.

Comes with convenient iPhone attachment. I mean are you fucking kidding me.