future children (a collaboration)

“hey, kristin, you know what’s awesome??  someday you’ll have kids and I’ll have kids and if we time them right, they can hang out with each other!”

“our kids will totally beat up carrie’s kids!”

“oh my god, carrie’s kids will bruise so easily! unlike our kids, who will have olive complexions.  my kids will also really like science.”

“mindy kaling will babysit my kids” 

“my kids might like science too much, even”

“our kids will recognize and no less appreciate the absurdity of dinosaurs. they will brag about their wounds.”

“our kids will have great shoulders and powerful forearms. their fingers will be dexterous.” 

“our kids will not ‘get’ frosting.”

“your kids will have to push my kids off of playground equipment sometimes, to make them tougher. I will hand your kids $20 bills for doing this so they will keep the secret.”

“my kids will keep shoeboxes full of cash instead of baseball cards. like frosting, my kids will not ‘get’ hoarding or collections. they will enjoy fire, metaphorically. Also, literally. they will go through pyro phases.”

“my kids will know that all of the best hoarding is digital. they will be early adopters of everything. they’ll have to be.”

“if only because they will have a preternatural understanding of the inevitablity and necessity of transience.”

“yes. and I will threaten to put my children up for adoption if they refuse to adopt new technologies”

“your kids will scoff at other kids. they will use words like ‘luddite’ and have a taste for almonds.”

“our kids will watch the right Star Treks and the right Twilight Zones.”

“but they won’t talk overmuch about the right ones because they do not want to sound like pricks. also, they want to keep their best secrets to themselves.”

“exactly. they will say ‘sounds cool’ and other two-word sentence fragments whenever they’re confronted with potentially pretentious conversations. they will eat meals like the world is ending. first: the meat. second: the carbs. third: the most delicious of the vegetables.”

“like chicken!”

“yes, our children will consider chicken a vegetable. fourth: unfrosted desserts. fifth: the non-poultry vegetables.”

“and fine cheese spreads. served with ritz crackers”

“they will not touch the crackers.” 

“our kids will emerge from our hostile wombs crying for cheese.”

“they will politely decline the crackers, appreciating that they were offered.”

“they will enjoy a high cheese-to-bread ratio. and pickled vegetables, they will understand, is the ambrosia of the gods. they will appreciate Tang, the marriage of sweet and savory.”

“born with nostalgia for the finest things, they will like shit just because they like it.  and their forts will have the best passwords and secret/trap doors.”