Years ago, a coworker on maternity leave brought her new baby in to school. I didn’t gather with everyone else to coo and pass the baby around like a bottle of Boone’s Farm in college. It was my lunch period, so I retreated to the faculty lounge to eat my peanut butter sandwich (which is totally more luxurious than any public school teacher deserves, I know. Me and my crunchy peanut butter).
Shortly thereafter, the mother came in, placed the baby carrier thingy on the table and asked me to watch him while she went and talked to the office staff then flounced off without waiting for a response.
It was me, my sandwich, and this baby. Baby was fine for a minute and I thought I might live through this. Then he started crying. Loudly. With gurgles.
I stuck my head out in the hallway. Empty. How could there be a baby in the faculty lounge and no one was in there to see him? People love babies, or so I’ve heard. My understanding is that most people, when confronted with a baby, have the same feelings I get when confronted by a bulldog puppy: the strong desire to scoop them up and hold them and say, “BOOP!”
BOOP!
With no one to intervene, I called my friend Brian, who also happened to be the assistant principal.
“Dude. Whatserface left her baby in the lounge and he’s crying and I don’t know what to do and I have to go back to class,” I said frantically. “Come help me.”
“Just pick him up,” Brian said.
“I don’t know how.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to pick up a baby, OK?” I snapped. “This kid’s got a head like a haggis. It’ll snap right off his neck if I don’t do it right.”
Brian showed up a few minutes later, picked up Baby and silenced him like a pro. “You’ve got to support the head with your hand, like this,” he said, showing me. “Now you try.”
He held Baby out to me. “No, thanks,” I said.
“Come on,” he egged on. “It’s just a baby.”
Then, THEN, people started showing up to the lounge and it was all What’s the matter? and Lisa doesn’t want to hold the baby and Who doesn’t want to hold a baby?
Under peer pressure, I finally took the baby. Looking down at him, I felt a little nauseous. He looked up and started crying.
“OK, I’m done!” I announced, handing Baby back to Brian and hightailing it out the door. I looked back for a moment and there was Baby in the middle of several cooing teachers, smiling a big smile.
He was probably pooping.
And that’s what I thought of while watching this episode of Alphas because I was so bored. Gary took care of a baby. Rosen shambled. Hicks growled. Rachel got laid. There’s a lab of some kind and, while describing the despicable Stanton Parrish, Rosen may as well be describing himself.
Show has been really disappointing the last couple of weeks. Please stop disappointing me, Show.
Related Stuff:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Hey, I have kids of my own, but have no desire to be around babies. Puppies are way cuter and more fun, plus they hardly ever cry. Real babies are akin to flash tornadoes. You never know when they are going to upturn your house and land on you.
Now, I’d actually be interested in a baby that turned into a tornado.