Your Stupid Plans

I saw a billboard today with a picture of an insanely hot but obviously unhappy teenage girl on it. Under her there was a phone number and this phrase: “You had plans. A baby wasn’t one of them.”

I have news for them: her plans were to wish she was still in high school, fart around in college studying a bunch of useless crap, party a lot, marry some good-looking but stupid guy, and then have a baby. Not long after that she plans to divorce and be an unhappy single mom (de facto).

Two paths, same stupid outcome.

I knew someone who had a baby out of wedlock after becoming pregnant in her senior year in high school. She was miserable during that period, and took it out on those around her, including me. Many years later, she married and had a couple of unremarkable kids. As a career, she chose public relations, which I personally regard as somewhat sleazy. I don’t know what plans, if any, she had when she got pregnant back then, but it appears that the outcome was, well, the same.

By this time you are expecting me to brag about my own plan, which surely must be better than your stupid plan. Although you might think it far too obvious and far too simple, my plan is, and always has been this: to be creative.

Now before you say that having children is a form of being creative, quick: tell me the name of Beethoven’s children. Of one of Einstein’s children. Thomas Edison? Albert Schweitzer? Confucius? Albert Camus? Come on! You can’t give me the names of any of their children? I’ll bet you could tell me why they are famous, though.