So, it looks like I’m gonna be a Papa. And, based on the image above, it looks as if I’m going to be the proud father of a healthy baby prawn. With, if you look closely enough, a really long… umbilical cord. (Please. If I didn’t make a puerile joke like that, someone would have. At least, that’s my defense.)

We’re gonna have a kid, and by “we,” I mean my wife—who seems steadfastly intent on doing it all by herself. “It’s natural,” she tells me. “It’s up to me, my stomach and an occasional craving for catsup and sauerkraut. And the gardener.”

“Hey, what’s he got to do with this?” I was suspicious. I’m quick like that.

“What? Oh, nothing.” She patted her belly. “Isn’t that right my little ootchie-kootchie-TruGreen Chemlawn?”

My part is done. (Not my “part” part—he’s fine. But I appreciate your concern, and so does Lord Von Hugenstein.) There’s little else for me to do, but being an emotional sort, I thought I’d write a letter to our future polka-dot; kind of a fatherly gesture, what with this being my first kid I ever knew about. So, here goes…

Dear Prawn,

I can’t say how good of a father I’ll be, but I hope when you’re on death row and they ask you how you came to this end–what caused you to be this way–I hope, my shrimp-like dickens, that you’ll look them straight in the eye and proudly blame it on yer Ma.

But before we even get to that point, I hope, boy or girl (we don’t know yet; we just hope you don’t turn out to be a puppy or a kitten… which, honestly, would make an excellent YouTube video), to teach you the important lessons in life:

• Michael Bay should never direct another movie again. I mean, Jesus!, who gives Optimus Prime lips?

• Cereal is only really cool when you can dig your hand deep down inside the plastic bag, get the rainbow-colored bits of artery-clogging crisp mini-donuts grimey with whatever childhood funk you’ve got growing on your skin, and grasp the cheap, plastic toy that someone (your Ma) will eventually force you to throw out because it’ll “draw bugs”. But for those few minutes when you’ve run off with your treasure and secreted it away somewhere in that toy-infested pit of perdition you call a room, it’ll be grand. Simply grand. Because, honestly? You only buy the cereal for the toy.
  

• If you’re a girl, stop it with the pink. Seriously. It’s just a bad color. Oh, and avoid pastels if you can.

• If you’re a boy, see the note to the girl.
  

• You can cry all you want; you can wail and gnash your teeth (when you have them), but no matter how sincere you are in your displeasure; no matter how passionately you point out how insanely dumb it is, Spike will continue to have a chip in his head for FOUR friggin’ seasons. They’ll make him bland and uninteresting; they’ll vacuum out his cool and replace it with a weird, frothy mixture of stalker and puppy love. Mourn for Buffy, my faithful off-spring, shed a tear for our favorite vampire slayer.
  

• Daddy’s wang really isn’t called “Lord Von Hugenstein”. It’s “Cadbury”. But that’s a family secret, so don’t tell anyone.

Take these lessons to heart, my little tadpole cast-off. This is wisdom I wish had been passed along to me when I was your age.

Love,

Pa