Now that, amazingly, I have a girlfriend, the pressure is on from my evil parents to pound out some grandkids for them. "Sorry," I say, "your grand kids ended up on the carpet after I rented 'Hot Stewardess Midget Vixens Unchained.'" Fortunately, my female friend has been mercifully quiet about them, although I knows her chromosomes are conspiring against me with her ovaries.

Not that I have anything against children. Once you get past the incontinence, constant squealing, grievous expense, totally irrational behavior, and ridiculous cartoons, they're not so bad. I had to admit it, but now that I think about it, kids couldn't be THAT much trouble.

First, I don't have to worry about the birthing part. Sure, it might be inconvenient to have to drive the mother to the hospital when labor pains strike, but if they have TV in the waiting room, I think I could get by. Failing that, I could always just go home and pick up the mom and the baby a couple of days later. Insurance covers birth costs, right?

My first plan of action is to leave the worm out in the woods for a couple of days. I'm kind of hoping that maybe some wolves will adopt it (it worked in Jungle Book!), or that some gypsies and/or carnies will happen by and take it into their troupe. Failing that, I guess that I'd be stuck with it.

Once the kid's home, the boob spigots are on so it won't cost me anything to feed it. I figure I can just use my 20 gallon aquarium to house the little larva for the first couple of years. Seems pretty easy to me. I'd just have to hose the aquarium down every week or so, and I could wash the kid at the same time. If the kid gets to whiny, I can just put it out in the garage. After all, I still have to fit in eight hours of TV a day.

When the fruit of my loins outgrows the tank, I guess I can let it run around the house. By then, it should be litter trained. After all, cats can learn how to use litter when they're just a few months old. Maybe the kid can learn from their example. I know what you're thinking, though. That's cruel to the cats! Well, we all have to make sacrifices. Besides, maybe when the kid is a little older, say 4-5, we can just tie it to a post in the backyard where it can do its business any time he wants.

The problem with children is that as they get older, they can become unmanageable. At first, they're like big slugs and you can just kind of stuff them under the couch. They do have a tendency to get bigger, though, and show a marked tendency for rebellion after awhile.  So, when the kid hits the ripe old age of, say, seven, it's about time that it left the house and got a job. Sure, they have child labor laws, but we can always just say that the kid has some kind of genetic disorder. Failing that, I guess that a military kindergarten will do it some good, as long as it's out of the house. Or, if that's too expensive, I can just drop it off by the side of the road and let it run wild and free. Then I'll move far, far away.

Sure, raising kids can be a challenge, but it's so rewarding.