Last week, seven wisecracking fetuses moved into my microwave. I don’t know where they came from or why they’re here, but they’re very rude to me and I hate them. Unfortunately, my wife won’t let me kick them out because they’re nice to her and she thinks of them as pets. I’m pretty much powerless in this situation, and the fetuses know it. Fuck.
1. First-Trimester Phil (The Runt): First-Trimester Phil is still pretty early on in the gestation process, so while the rest of the shithead fetuses that live in my microwave holler and rough-house at all hours of the night, he kinda just lies there and pulses in the back, minding his own business. He’s a weird-lookin’ little fucker—more prawn than human, honestly. Sometimes he emits a very high-pitched, sustained shrieking noise, and that sucks. But it doesn’t seem like it’s voluntary, so I can’t hold it against him. Out of all the fetuses, I probably hate Phil the least.
2. Upchuck (The Worst One): Upchuck is the ringleader of the fetuses and the bane of my existence. He has a stupid little fetus-sized leather jacket, a stupid little mohawk, a stupid little shit-eating grin, and just the stupidest little goddamn personality. All the other fetuses think it’s so cool and funny when he disrespects me, but it’s not. It’s mean. He makes fun of my weight. He ruthlessly mocks me for having a slight lisp. When my wife’s around, he acts like a cute babbling baby so she’ll hold him and read him stories, but the second she leaves the room he’ll start loudly boasting to the other fetuses about having anal intercourse with her and sucking all the milk out of her “pepperoni nips,” and they actually fucking believe him. But of all the awful things Upchuck has done, perhaps the worst is inventing the game called Concuss the Elephant. The conceit of the game is simple: Every time I (a.k.a. “the elephant”) enter the kitchen, Upchuck and the other fetuses compete to see who can be the first to give me a concussion by throwing heavy objects at my head, and whoever succeeds in hurting me the most wins the grand prize of my wallet, which they stole. It is a miserable game, and I am always the loser. Go to hell, Upchuck.
3. Marv (The One Who Acquired A Gun Somehow): Simply put, Marv has a gun. I don’t know where he got the gun, but he has it, and it is scary. He’s never shot the gun, thank god, but all day long this maniacal fetus crawls around my microwave waving his gun crazily over his head, and he likes to point it at me as a joke. “Tee hee hee, I am going to kill you with my gum!” he’ll often yell at me, not even getting the word right. The other fetuses think it’s hilarious. They think everything’s hilarious. If Marv ever accidentally shoots me, they will think that, too, is hilarious, because they’re not emotionally intelligent enough to understand the consequences of their actions. These fetuses are animals. Goddamn animals.
4. Baxter (The Wise Sage): Baxter dresses and behaves like a tiny esteemed linguistics professor, and because of this, the other fetuses in my microwave trust him as an intellectual authority and often look to him for wisdom. Obviously, being a fetus, he is illiterate and not actually smart in any way, but that doesn’t stop him from teaching his daily “lessons” to the other fetuses, where he’ll “read” from his “philosophical tome” (e.g., an upside-down Rick Reilly book about Wayne Gretzky that he stole from my backpack) and deliver rambling discourses on ethical matters pertinent to living in a microwave. Whenever I get mad at the fetuses for throwing canned food at my head, Baxter is always right there to lecture me on the folly of anger, and he claims to be working on an academic paper about me titled “The Emotional Volatility Of Homo Erectus,” though as far as I can tell it’s just a bunch of crayon scribbles on a paper towel. Basically, Baxter is a fucking prick.
5. Infinite Forceps (The One Who Is Always Trying To Abort The Others): This one’s a creepy little bastard. For some reason he has two long obstetric forceps instead of arms (hence the name Infinite Forceps), and he’s always slowly chasing after the other fetuses with the forceps outstretched, very quietly mumbling things like “I am coming now to seize you” and “I should very much like to abort you, darling.” He claims that he’s trying to abort the other fetuses, but it’s pretty clear he has no clue how to go about doing that. The only fetus I’ve ever seen him successfully capture was First-Trimester Phil, and he sort of just lifted Phil up to his mouth with his forceps and gently gummed him for a bit, whispering, “We’re having an abortion right now, aren’t we, gorgeous?” into Phil’s undeveloped ear holes. Made my skin crawl. One notable fact about Infinite Forceps is that, to my knowledge, he’s the only one of the fetuses who has ever traveled beyond the kitchen. I once woke up at 3 a.m. and he was standing on our bedroom nightstand, breathing heavily and watching us sleep. I tried my best to catch him in a pillowcase, but he used his forceps to quickly climb up our curtains and disappear into a ceiling vent. Maddeningly, my wife found the whole thing endearing. She refers to Infinite Forceps as “the one with special needs” and thinks that he probably just came into our room because he was frightened and needed some mothering. Such bullshit.
6. Li’l Lyle Lovett (The Musical One): Li’l Lyle Lovett basically looks exactly like the real Lyle Lovett, only tiny and wet. He sings songs constantly, and his voice is actually pretty decent for a fetus. Unfortunately, he always rallies the other fetuses to sing with him, and I cannot overstate how terrible they sound. Lyle will call out a song, and the whole gang will line up at the front of the microwave like it’s a stage and then they’ll all loudly growl the song in unison for hours on end, making no effort to stay in the same key. Last night, right when I was getting into bed, Lyle shouted, “Okay, gang, from the top!” and all seven fetuses proceeded to sing “When You Wish Upon A Star” for eight goddam hours straight, screaming louder and more belligerently as they went. I came into the kitchen and asked them to be quiet at one point, but they just cussed and threw silverware at me until I left them alone. I briefly considered slamming the microwave door on the bastards and cooking ’em til they shut the hell up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. They’re just babies, after all.
7. One-Eyed Wanda (The One Who Has A Whistle): Wanda is the only girl one, and she is missing an eye. Her main thing is that she wears a whistle around her neck and she spends most her time standing at the edge of the microwave blowing the whistle like a referee. Whenever I walk into the kitchen, she blows the whistle even louder and screams, “Penalty! Penalty!” until I leave. Also, she cut arm holes in all our oven mitts and wears them as dresses, so now we have to buy new oven mitts. These fetuses are just so goddamn inconsiderate. I don’t know what to do about them. I’m having panic attacks all the time now, and I just want this nightmare to end. I hate the fetuses who live in my microwave so much, but I guess I’ll have to get used to them.
