Thursday, October 7, 2010

Playing God

I always assumed that by the time any of my friends decided to have children, I would be much older and mature enough for anyone to see me as an ideal candidate for godmother. I could be the quirky, "oh-there-she-goes-again-being-weird" kind of godmother that a kid could easily take to school for Show and Tell. Yes, 8 years from now, I will surely be in high demand as a godmother to all of my closest friends, and naturally I will agree to be all the (cute) children's godmothers. Because I have standards.

I was caught unawares a couple of weeks ago when that fateful day when I was asked to be a godmother came sooner rather than later. Before you ask yourself "which of her high profile celebrity friends has a bun in the oven?!?" in complete shock, let me clarify. I was asked to be the godmother to the baby of the cleaning lady at my office.

At first, I assumed my extremely brown skin and general latina appearance (mushroom-like nose and asian bowed legs excluded) led her to believe that I was one of her people; however, when I explained to her in a purposefully white person accent that I was "un parte japones, un parte BLANCO", she acted unsurprised. She then asked another spanish speaking staffmember to translate our conversation and told him that she thought I was a good lady and a "people person"(PUH LEASE) and she wanted me to be the godmother. Why does everyone think I am a people person? I am NOT. I am a people-I-like person, but not a people person. But I digress. Anyway, now she wants me to attend a class at her Honduran Catholic Church and learn how to properly hold a baby. Here's why I should have said no:
1) I don't even think there is such a thing as a Honduran Catholic Church in America and if there is on, it's probably an abandoned location where a serial killer will undoubtedly murder us both, or maybe just me if her husband turns out to be a killer and this is one of his twisted games. I watch too much Dexter.
2) I have never held a baby for more than 30 seconds before I hold it away from my body using as few fingers as possible and say "oh, it doesn't like me!" regardless of whether the child is crying or not.
3) If she doesn't have any sort of citizenship in place, the chances that she will leave her child with me and head for the hills, or beach, or shantys, in Honduras are very high.

Here's why I said yes:
1) I have difficulty setting boundaries for people
2) I desperately wanted to tell Lindsay about this entire story

I have since learned that my future godchild's name is Luis and he is 1 year old. She showed me a picture of him sitting in a shopping cart and I said "Oh my gosh, I have a picture of my dog in a shopping cart too!" which didn't really translate well and even if it did, it still makes no sense why I would put my dog in a shopping cart.

So here ends my story...for now, until I take my first How to Not Drop a Baby as it is Baptized in Oil at a Real or Unreal Honduran Catholic Church class. To be continued....unless I get killed.

1 comment:

YES, I'VE ALWAYS BEEN THIS RIDICULOUS. said...

I pretty much only like this post because you mentioned me in it. I win!!!!!!!!!!