Friday Guest Mock: The Life

This weekly installment of our Guest Mock series is being handled by the lovely and talented Zazu. I don’t think you can find her work anywhere else on the Interwebs so I’m gonna go ahead and claim another Mockable exclusive.  

On with the mocking:

I stand at the front of the big Mega Mart, my eyes scanning the endless row of empty check-out lines, their numbers all dark.  There is no hope on my face as I search in vain; looking for one, just one, that is actually open. I finally spot the three out of twenty that are accepting the public’s money and I try to guess which long line might, just might, be moving a bit faster than the others.  Resignedly, I realize it doesn’t matter which line I pick.   Movement will cease as soon as I join the queue. Are you allowed to say “queue” at a Mega Mart??  I don’t know so I just join the nearest long line. 

But then I spot her, up ahead, at the front of this line.  I always see her here!  She is here every time I come.  Only three people separate me from her.  I briefly consider taking out my cell phone to discretely snap a picture for posting on the internet, but I don’t.  She could easily beat my ass. 

Baby Mama, big and bountiful, fabulously fertile.  Today in jeans that are too tight and too short; a change from her usual sweat pants. The tattoo is always the same – a butterfly on her shoulder or a heart nestled in her ample cleavage or a unicorn on her meaty upper arm.  Her T-shirt is stretched tight over her tummy and she could use a better bra. 

Three discouraged shoppers separate us.  Using them as camouflage I surreptitiously watch her and her brood spread out and take over the front of checkout line, the cashier, and the entire conveyor belt.  Two of her tribe are bronco busting the grocery bag turnstile. There might be another one behind the counter with the cashier.  I can’t tell, but the cashier looks annoyed through her friendly Mega Mart smile.   I notice how cleverly Baby Mama manhandles the top-heavy cart stuffed with dry goods and junk food.  She has a wet yearling wedged securely between 2 heavy bottles of pop in the shopping cart seat to keep him from toppling out.  He is happily drooling and teething on a carton of cigarettes.   I can smell the sour milk from the back of the line. 

Only I am already not the check-out caboose any longer.  A homeless-looking man and a gay couple are behind me already.  We haven’t moved forward yet.  She is taking her time.  She knows we won’t rush her. 

Suddenly, we all hear a loud wail start, gathering momentum to reach screech level in a nano second.  I lean slightly to peer around the fat lady in front of me to see one of her sticky toddlers.  I don’t see his face, only his tonsils surround by his shiny open mouth. He is squatting down inside the cart.  She has him secured in between a case of beer and 2 large boxes of pizza.  He’s dropped his pacifier.  She bends down; unintentionally mooning us all, grabs it up and with one swift sure motion, plugs the hole in his face.  We all sigh silently with relief.  The toddler struggles to his feet and tries to stand up in the cart.  She shoves him back down with one hand and with the other, skillfully catches a gallon of chocolate milk before it too hits the grey floor.

 “Here, hold that.” She snaps over her shoulder.

 Now I can see, off to one side of the cart, a bored underdressed gum popping pre-teen resentfully accept the brown plastic container.  Elbow buried in her waist, the teen dangles it at an angle so it can drip onto the floor.

 “Is she is yours too?” I ask Baby Mama silently.  “The oldest of your brood?” 

 No.  Just beyond the preteen I can see an even older tank topped teen with black fingernails and a spiked orange pony tail holding a new born on her shoulder.  His is mercifully sleeping with his bare feet dangling out of the bottom on a pink and blue blanket.

 “Yours or hers?” I can’t help wondering with a touch of awe.  There is no way I would actually ask her out loud.   Two crew cut, cammo clad boys chase and punch each other, darting in and out around the two girls.

 She yells at them to cut it out.  They ignore her but instead of snatching them up in a knot; she just starts tossing items, willy nilly, onto the conveyor belt.  We are going to be here awhile, I can tell.  I sigh a little, shift my weight to my less tired foot and prop the other on the base of my shopping cart, silently wondering, “How did she have so many babies?

 Was she led astray by an older man?  Did she quit school?  Was it immaculate? What happened?  I wish I dared to ask her but I can’t see me saying, “So how did you become…um…a professional procreator?  What got you into the life?”

 I think I can guess some of the reasons.  I look at the tot toting teenager.  She’s probably not 18 yet.  Baby Mama looks about 45 but I think she is really younger.  At least she dresses like she thinks she is younger… and thinner.  I am guessing she had orange pony tail when she was about 16.  I bet Orange was an anchor baby.  I don’t mean that future Baby Mama crossed the Rio Grande and gave birth to anchor herself to the US.  Orange is not that kind of an anchor baby.  No, her purpose was to anchor Baby Mama and Billy Bob/Ray’s “eternal LUV”.  I bet she was caught up in the romance and the sex, plus living with her momma and all her kids was a real drag. Billy’s LUV took her away from all that and he let her drink beer and bought her pot.   But Billy just didn’t believe in taking a shower with a raincoat on.  Future Baby Mama thinks it doesn’t matter that Billy Bob/Ray has never had a steady job ever or that for him; Saturdays are for stocking up on twelve packs before Sunday.    Billy Ray/Bob her true LUV!  Sometimes he even make good money when he found a construction job.

 So within a few months along comes orange pony tail, right on schedule.  Baby Mama moved out of her mama’s and into Billy’s trailer.  Soon it was hard to make it to the drag strip or a honky-tonk on Saturday nights with the baby in tow.  The relationship starts to suffer as Billy Bob/Ray leaves her and her fussy baby at home and goes anyway.

 I’m guessing the gum popping teeny bopper was her solution to saving hers and Billy Bob/Ray’s relashunship.  I am pretty sure she was still with Billy when Gum Popper came along because the two girls look close in age and if the oldest’s ponytail wasn’t orange, they’d almost look like twins.  Baby Mama and Billy Bob/Ray probably legally tied the knot with the first toddler in tow.  This happened after Baby Mama talked to Billy Ray/Bob’s mama about how her kids needed his name and since the pill made her bitchy, another one was on the way.  She was hell bent on hog tying a daddy to her kids because she would do anything for her kids!  She knows how to be a martyr momma!  Anyway legal papers meant that he had to pay mandated child support and two babies put a crimp in his style so he couldn’t go anywhere.

 Now the oldest boy?  It looks like there was a gap of a couple of years between kids.  He obviously came along after Baby Mama was glad to see the last of Billy Ray/Bob. His complexion is darker and devoid of freckles.  I bet Baby Mama’s mama was watching the babies on weekends since poor Baby Mama was entitled to a little happiness.  That is probably when she met Curtis and after one date and a few beers she could not resist him when he swore to her he was an ass man.  No way did he think she was fat.  And of course she didn’t carry trojans and he never carried them either.  But she’d heard how good he took care of all his kids and gave money to all his baby mamas so if it was the wrong time of the month, so what?  With three kids she would not be able to work, but she didn’t like her job anyway.

 The next boy?  I don’t think Curtis consistently gave money to his baby mamas or maybe he just had too many kids or too many baby mamas because this second cammo hellion is really skinny with a red crew cut while is brother is heavier and darker.  Cammo, the sequel, obviously came from somewhere else.  The two little ones riding rodeo on the turnstile? They don’t match any one else either.  Things were probably getting especially murky by the time these two came along.  Too many different fiancés at different times or maybe even two at the same time??  I can believe the record keeping got sketchy.  It is harder to keep up with the month when you are busy chasing around a bunch of kids.  The newest tot crop blatantly suggests there were baby daddy repeats. 

 Was she just so used to “the life” now and couldn’t stop?  A procreation addict, perhaps? A card carrying member of the Oldest Profession Union?  Public assistance, WIC, money from the guvernmint, and child support force her stay at home.  There is no way she can pay even the reduced rate for all the childcare she needs to work somewhere after her mama told her she couldn’t keep all her kids and her sister’s too.

 Procreating is not a bad gig, though.  There is the sex, of course.  Different boyfriends may make it complicated but keep it interesting.  The trips to the hospital are free.  Making babies keeps the money coming in, provides income based housing, and requires her to eat all she wants for 9 months because it is for the baby.  It is, perhaps, not the highest income, but enough for beer, cigarettes, fast food, getting her nails done and satellite TV.  She even gets to use the special up close pregnant parking.  All in all, going “professional” is a pretty good deal.

 Nowadays since half of her crew goes to school she can even sleep late in the mornings without too much interruption unless the baby cries too loud.  Lately she has lain in bed until noon while little ones empty the cereal boxes on the kitchen floor.  Over the crunch, crunch of them stomping their crispy-o’s into the linoleum, when “Climb Every Mountain” comes on the clock radio, she pulls the pillow over her head and asks herself how many would it take to get her own reality show.

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