Nearly thirty years ago, at 4:32PM on a Tuesday in June, the human race gained ten pounds. I remember the day and specific time because I was rooting around my parent's bedroom and found my birth certificate while I was in elementary school child. In those days, TV's Night Court was in syndication on Fox; it happened to air on Tuesday's at 4:30.
"Great," I thought to myself. "I was born in time for Night Court." And the details of my arrival have remained with me since.
To some people this might seem precocious. I would've agreed, until I watched an episode in my adulthood. Then I wondered what was wrong with my father, who used to watch with me, on occasions when I wasn't rummaging through his drawers. Maybe there was nothing wrong. Perhaps it was merely a simpler time. Though I do like to think of myself as precocious...
I was born breech. This has always made sense to me, and if I were president of the baby's union this would be standard practice. Not only does it seem more reasonable spatially, but it strikes me as cautious. Adults would never go head-first into a void. My parents didn't even want me going head-first down the slide. And yet we expect babies to be forced out of the only world they've ever known, to heaven knows what awaits beyond, head-leading-the-way.
Even if only as an act of self-expression, arriving breech strikes me as having value.
3 comments:
Do-do-dooo-do-do-do-doooo...
Dwoo-do-do!
(Night Court theme music. Can you hear it?)
I knew what that was long before your parenthetical statement. It was in my head all yesterday.
The visual image that accompanies that music in my mind is of Bul talking animatedly and then the shot freezing on him with his mouth partially open.
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