7.02 / February 2012

Babymaking

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Season One_______ ___________________________________________________________

The Pact

Three middle school girls make a pregnancy pact. They are bored and they want attention and unconditional love. The first one, Bridgina, does it with Wendell, her boyfriend of two weeks, on the school bus. A few weeks later, she pees on a little stick in the nurse’s office with the other girls watching and sees a thin blue line. The three girls embrace and high-five.

TrinaLynn, the second one, doesn’t have a boyfriend, but she has sex with a pockmarked twenty-two year old who works on a fish boat. They do it right on top of a pile of flounder, just like in the movies. When the time comes for her to go to the nurse’s office, she pees two blue lines onto that stick because she is just that pregnant. Once again, the three girls hug, kiss, and cry tears of hysterical happiness.

The third girl, Ashollee, doesn’t have a boyfriend either, so she has sex with a homeless guy. She has sex with a homeless guy three times. The first two times don’t work and she doesn’t want the other girls to have their baby parade without her bringing up the rear. She goes to the nurse’s office for the third time, so nervous she can barely pee, but when she finally does there’s a blue line on that stick-albeit a faint one. The other girls blow their noisemakers, embrace and high-five as before.

Family Conflict

Bridgina’s parents are astounded by the news that their daughter is pregnant. They took her as a fine, upstanding young woman with values and not some kind of hussy. Clearly she has been influenced by the glorification of babymaking in the modern media. They suspect that Wendell has something to do with this inconvenient pregnancy.

TrinaLynn’s parents blame themselves. Her mother got pregnant when she was fourteen and became a creditor at a young age just to pay the bills. Her father acknowledges that the divorce may have created some distance between certain members of the family. Therefore TrinaLynn’s parents are really supportive, which is great because she’s really pregnant.

Ashollee’s parents react with a nod and a sigh when she announces that she’s having a baby, even though she tells them that she did it with a homeless guy and ran over the condom with the lawnmower three times. They have six school-age daughters and they’re all pregnant. The meth lab in the basement can hardly pay for all of the diapers they’re going to need come March.

Baby is the New Black

Soon everybody at school knows that the three girls are knocked up. They become super-popular and everyone tells them how lucky they are because they’re going to have babies. Other girls stop them in the hallway to feel the gentle kick of the fetuses and shriek at ultrasound pictures. It makes them all want babies, too.

The principal and other school officials are alarmed. The teen pregnancy rate mysteriously spikes by three girls and it does not escape the notice of the local papers. The nurse says she’s done all she could do, distributing the Pill like Pez and passing out condoms only for them to be inflated and used as balloons at baby showers.

And there are quite a few baby showers. First, TrinaLynn throws a baby shower for Bridgina. Next Bridgina throws a baby shower for TrinaLynn. Not to be outdone, Ashollee throws a baby shower for TrinaLynn. Then TrinaLynn throws a baby shower for Ashollee. It was so great that Ashollee throws a baby shower for Bridgina that same day. Finally, Bridgina throws a baby shower for Ashollee, but they were all sick of spending their allowance on booties and bibs by then. Approximately eighty-five percent of the nurse’s condom stash is used as party balloons that week, leaving hardly enough for the nurse.

Season Two___________________________________________________________________

Love and Loss

Bridgina confronts Wendell about whether he plans to fulfill his parental role, as he seems more interested in video games and less pregnant women. He turns down his bowling scholarship so he can get a job and support Bridgina and the baby. Then he moves in. Wendell’s disapproving parents urge him to get a paternity test because Bridgina is clearly a fine hussy and not some upstanding young woman with values.

TrinaLynn’s parents agree to take care of their future grandchild when TrinaLynn returns to high school. Just as she was accepting her future as a single mother, the boy from the fish boat shows up on her porch with a bouquet of carnations and a half pound of shrimp. He expresses a strong desire to be a real father to the baby, the father he never had-his own was lost at sea.

There’s no more room for babies at Ashollee’s house, so she drops out of school and moves in with her Aunt Vicky. Ashollee instructs an advanced cardio-kickboxing class in the basement to earn a meager income while she studies for her GED test. She fails the test three times and swears she wishes she never did it with that homeless man.

Labor Day

People gradually lose interest in Bridgina, TrinaLynn, and Ashollee. Other girls at school get pregnant and a belly full of baby just isn’t special anymore. The girls are impatient to go into labor, so they spend a whole day jumping up and down on TrinaLynn’s trampoline. The next day in math class, their water breaks at the same time and they leave together in the same ambulance. The students lift their legs while the janitor mops up the flood of baby fluids under the desks.

Bridgina gives birth to Yazmin Starr and she looks just like her father. She brings the baby home only to discover that Wendell’s career as a video game tester was a lie, but they quickly make up. The process of making up makes Bridgina pregnant again, so the boundlessly fertile Wendell and Bridgina get married and begin their family of ten. Their trials and tribulations inspire a Lifetime movie called All My Babies.
TrinaLynn has twins, Lunesta Skye and Purina Rae-one for each of her guilt-ridden parents. The boy from the fish boat has been running around with less pregnant woman, so TrinaLynn remains a single mom. She follows in her mother’s footsteps and becomes a creditor. When she is cast on the reality TV show Teen Creditor, her financial problems are solved forever.

The Grand Finale

Ashollee raises her baby Usher Jaxson all by herself in her negligent Aunt Vicky’s basement. One day she gets a call from the homeless man, but he isn’t homeless anymore. He was washing windshields on the street when he was discovered by an agency looking for a hand model. After the world saw his hands dipping a corn chip in a salsa commercial, other businesses sought to get his hands on their caramel macchiatos and fine gold jewelry.

Now he is on every news station with reporters asking him to take his gloves off for the camera. His pristine hands are on the cover of the newspaper under the headline “Homeless to Hand Model.” He bought a house in Los Angeles and he wants to be a part of his son’s life, to pay child support and send him to college.

It’s funny how these things work out.


Brittany Shutts is a recent graduate of Purchase College. She is in the process of relocating to a basement in Port Chester, New York, where she will cohabit with a charming young person in a pair of teal scrubs. She is a recent graduate of Purchase College. Her work appears in Italics Mine and is forthcoming in the first issue of The Golden Triangle. She writes about carnivorous plants and chocolate hangovers at thepersonalautopsy.blogspot.com.
7.02 / February 2012

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