Barbabies

Dear Bar Patrons Everywhere,

I can let this kind of thing slide once, but this has now been two Saturdays in a row that I've been at the same bar and seen the same guy with the same baby in his arms. Not like "oh man, just an emergency, and I'm stepping in to get coins for the meter," but like "hey, here I am, and this fifth Guinness is delicious, and whatdya think of my fat fucking BABY??" This is ridiculous, and I'll explain why.

Honestly, I don't care about the welfare of this child. He's not my child. If he ends up repeating the tenth grade three times because daddy raised him in dark seedy Brooklyn dive bars, that's no skin off my back at all. I'll probably never cross paths with the runt again. In fact, I hope I don't, because I don't need the little thug knocking off the one liquor store I happen to be standing in on some lazy Saturday afternooon.

But a baby in a bar is a problem because, for the rest of us, this bar is a sacred place. We're here to NOT think about babies, and life, and responsibilities that await us at home or in our futures. We're drinking, we're laughing, we're making smalltalk or funny nonsense talk about this and that. We're breaking the bartender's balls about his crappy local sports team or his ridiculous accent. We're flirting with the cute girl sitting next to us, and while our minds may be wandering to what the flirting might lead to, we DO NOT want to be reminded of what the thing the flirting might lead to could later lead to. Get me? I mean, imagine if when you were trying to conceive that baby somebody posted a giant STD prevention poster on your headboard, with some close-ups of some open sores or something. HAVING FUN YET??? Some things just don't mix well. Oil and water. Cigarettes and jogging. Babies and bars. Seriously, it's in the top three, at least.

I have thought long and hard about this, and I've come up with one and only one solution to this problem, and consider this a plea that you all join in with me:

Give the babies the finger.

I know it sounds extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and we need to remain vigilant and defend the honor of our sacred spaces in this overcrowded world. Say it with me. Give the babies the finger. If enough of us give babies the finger in bars, then Daddy Buzzkill might be a whole lot less likely to show up toting the tot next time around. Hell, maybe then Junior actually ends up having a chance in life too. YOU'RE PRACTICALLY DOING HIM A FAVOR.

Fight the power, my drink-wielding comrades. Give the babies the finger.