Fruits of Our Labors

by Randy Cromwell

     Do you remember the smell of a diaper? Understand me, please - I am quite serious. I am asking you to recall the precise odor created by a baby's biological functions. I apologize now for this, but it is absolutely vital to your understanding of what will follow.

     Please understand this, also: I am not asking you to simply remember that it was a horrible odor. I am asking you to call that smell back from the recesses of your memory, and actually feel the smell in your nasal passages again. Picture yourself changing that diaper, if you have to. Do whatever it takes.

     If you find this difficult because you've never changed a baby's diaper, then you're either so young that you're not that far from that stage of life, yourself, or else you're a slacker, and should be ashamed of yourself, Bub. Those diapers need to be changed, and it's everybody's job to do it.

     Or maybe you're pretty young, and you're changing diapers already, anyway. I understand that. Maybe your mom works a lot, and you're home with a little brother or sister. I understand that, too. My mom was like that. My sister used to change my little brother's diaper a lot. She knew the smell that I'm talking about. (No, I didn't change his diaper much -- maybe not ever. I'm a slacker, and suitably ashamed of it, so please feel free to drop the subject.)

     Are you starting to remember the smell yet? Please keep in mind that we are talking about what they call "disposable" diapers. Not soft, airy cotton that at least lets some breeze through. No, we're talking about the plastic stuff that holds all the poop right against the baby's butt, right up until the moment that you pull off those little tape tabs. And then all that saved-up aroma explodes out of the child's nether regions, and right up into your nostrils, and straight into your brain.

     You gag, your eyes swell and water, you sway on your feet. You try to hold your breath, but then realize that you would pass out long before you finish cleaning this beast. You have to decide if you want to pass out from lack of oxygen, or from the overwhelming fumes that this charming creature has just bestowed upon you.

     Your face carries an expression of disbelief; it is incredible that such a tiny, supposedly helpless being can produce something so horrid and foul. It is hard to imagine how the poor thing can even still be alive, if something this vile came from its bowels. Something that smells like this could be used to carve marble, if the sculptor was able to manipulate it by robotics, from several miles away. You wonder why there were no OSHA labels on the child, requiring the diaper-changer to wear a gas mask and rubberized clothing.

     Remember, too, that this diaper that you are changing, is filled with the product of a child who eats, not only her own mother's milk, but also what the Baby "Food" Industry euphemistically calls "formula."

     What is that?! "Formula?" I first learned the word "formula" in chemistry class. When we made a formula, the point was to create the strangest mixtures of chemicals, in an effort to see which ones would exlode, and which ones would simply eat away the glass beakers. I think the scientists working for the food companies just got together in the lab one day, and mixed up a bunch of stuff. They hit upon a compound that was whitish, and about the consistency of mother's milk, and one of them said, "Hey! I know! Let's call it 'formula!' That way, we don't really have to explain what's in it, since we really don't remember, anyway."

     That, in my opinion, was the birth of "Baby Formula." They let the water all evaporate, and took the remaining powder, and put it in a can, and on the can they put a picture of a smiling baby sucking on a woman's breast, and convinced several million women that this stuff was even better than what their own bodies could make. All they had to do was add water, put it in a bottle, warm it up, and stick it in the kid's mouth.

     The result, obviously, has been diapers that smell even worse than they used to. Make no mistake - a diaper from a breast-fed baby is still considered a deadly weapon by the Geneva Convention. Still, with all these unknown chemicals from formula being mixed up into a child's system, the diaper then becomes a device capable of causing mass hysteria and panic. Certain Middle East countries are known to be stock-piling used diapers, even as you're reading this.

     Now, in addition to the confusion the child's body is clearly experiencing, assume that the child's care-givers have decided that it is time to start the child on solid foods. Once again, our kindly and benevolent Baby Food Industry has the right answer. Picture all the things that you hate to eat, because they taste so absolutely horrible. What's the first thing you want to do with those alleged vegetables? Well, certainly, if it's too disgusting for you to eat, the natural response would be "feed it to my offspring," right?

     That's what the Baby Food Industry realized, too. So they saved you the trouble of scraping all the non-edibles off your plate and mashing and straining them so that "Ol' Toofless" can enjoy what none of the rest of us can stand. What a clever and resourceful utilization of all those amazing foods that otherwise would have probably gone to waste on only the least discriminating and under-educated, not to mention starving, hogs and goats. Once again, Our Beloved Baby Food Industry has saved the day!

     Do you remember what babies do, when they are first exposed to "Strained Squash" or "Bashed Beets" or any of the hundreds of these kinds of infant delicacies?

     First, they stare at you like you've got a third eye in the middle of your forehead, and like your brains are oozing out of it.

     Next, they clamp their mouths shut tighter than Dad's hand on the remote.

     You pry their lips apart, with spoon or finger, and they immediately begin screaming and spitting.

     They flail their clumsy, chubby hands and arms about, in every effort to deflect these nauseating concoctions from their mouths. They kick their feet, too, but it's still not known whether this is an additional attempt to send the offending spoon into space, or to disable the person who, from the baby's point of view, is assualting them with a deadly food-like substance.

     By virtue of our superior intelligence (just as a snapping turtle is brighter than the log it bites, to defend itself), we eventually succeed in our devious little torture of our child's tongue. The child has become exhausted, and bows to the inevitable, and chokes down the goo.

     They never forgive, you know. None of us do. We don't remember, but who of us has ever really forgiven our parents for the stuff they shoved down our throats? This is the biggest reason that children don't get along with adults. They see us all in the same conspiracy that we saw our parents and the other adults in our lives. The Evil Feeders, my siblings and I called it. I don't know what the kids call it now, but it's still going on, becoming more subtle with every added vitamin and vegetable.

     The Baby Food Industry is doing its part, and is untiring in its efforts to provide us with ever more creative and "health-full" food substitutes. Just last month, they unveiled their newest product: "Baby gruel-mush-porridge-meal." No one knows what's in it, but it is, chemically and biologically, completely indistinguishable from mud. They are expecting incomparable success with this one.

     As I'm sure you're beginning to recall, though, babies do have a very effective form of revenge for all these artificial food experiments we put them through. It is called "the dirty diaper." By attempting to refuse to ingest all these strange substances, they all really are trying to do everyone a favor. Adults resist, however, thinking they know better, and force these things down the kids throats. The results, naturally enough, are breathtaking to behold.

     The child, still processing the watery-milky-chalky breast-milk replacement, suddenly also has to contend with the vegetables that no thinking or tasting adult would share table-space with. There is no malice in children of this age. They are simply cleansing their bodies of toxins - turnips, rutabagas, brussells sprouts, etc. Any adult would do the same, if forced to swallow such fare.

     So are you remembering now? Are you clearly and forcefully recalling, and feeling and tasting in your nose, the incredible vileness of a truly dirty diaper? The worst one you ever changed, or even breathed near? The very worst diaper to ever cross your senses?

     Have you got it yet?

     Good... because that's exactly what llama spit tastes like.

     ... but that's another story....