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1. Arby’s Anyone?

Hello, my name is Claire Morgan and I never want to have children.

For those of you out there who feel the same way, is it just me or does it seem like you’re in the middle of a horrible Alcoholics Anonymous meeting whenever someone finds out you never want children? Should I stand up, greet the room as a whole, and confess what brings me to the seventh circle of hell I constantly find myself in? It’s a house of horrors where I’m surrounded by pregnant women asking me to touch their protruding bellies and have in-depth discussions about their vaginas. They don’t understand why the words placenta and afterbirth should never be used in a sentence. Ever. Especially over coffee in the middle of the day.

“So, Claire, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“I’m never having children. ”

“Claire, did you choose a major yet?”

“I’m never having children. ”

“Would you like fries with that?”

“I’m never having children. ”

Of course there are always those in your life who think they can change your mind. They get married, have a baby, and then invite you over expecting you to be overcome with emotion when you take a look at their new little miracle. In truth, all you can do is look around at the house they haven’t had time to clean in six weeks, smell their body they haven’t had time to bathe in two weeks, and watch their eyes get a little squirrelly when you ask them the last time they got a good night’s sleep. You see them laugh at every burp and smile at every fart. They manage to bring poop into every single conversation, and you have to wonder who the crazy one really is here.

Then you have the people who believe your flippancy is due to some deep, dark, secret issue with your uterus that you’re overcompensating for, and they look at you and your vagina with pity. They whisper behind your back and then suddenly it turns into a horrible game of “Telephone,” and the whole world thinks you have life-threatening fertility issues where pregnancy will cause your vagina to spontaneously combust and your left tit to fall off. Stop the insanity! All my bits are in working order and as far as I know, I don’t have exploding vagina syndrome.