Here’s an enigma that I once thought was reason: Two intelligent, proactive, mild and well- mannered individuals settle in a handsome town with perfect schools and all the tools to raise a perfect family. Is that not enough? Does that not scream the perfect formula for a perfect trifecta - quadfecta? - of siblings who will grow up to be better, more intelligent, more proactive, staggeringly well- mannered individuals that will then settle into their own handsome towns? I will become a parent, I truly know that this is the case, but I plead! Hands of fate, witches of parenthood, hospitals across the nations, I plead: Do anything you must, but do not let me become this festering poison of false success! Should I come to your eagerly awaiting palms-broomsticks-doors remember this cry of tortured grievance and throw me behind with a well- deserved air of pure seniority and disrespect. I can hardly wave away the accusations of hypocrite even as I write; should I ask the ever- fleeting grainy holograms of my childhood brain matter what I was supposed to remember about them now they would answer without falter: We can’t be sure! We’re you, and even you don’t care! Yes, sure, have it your way, this is the case, but is it too small of a question to ask? Will I, the distinguished and occasionally similarly aching adult, even take these experiences into consideration? Or will they be - for lack of a better rhyme - hidden in damnation? I speak, living in a good place with good smart people and a good range of decencies among them, knowing just enough good adults to fill a small broom closet. And bear in mind: not all are the skinny ones, and even they have to squeeze around the mops and bleach bottles in there for cleaning up the messes of the bad ones anyway. It’s just so silly. Why must I live unwillingly blinded, severely and completely immobilized from ever finding out the answer to: Are we all really the same? Teach me now, tell me now, shake me by my young and impressionable shoulders and let me know- NOW- because I will, without a single hesitation, discontinue this unforgiving fashion of never quitting while I’m ahead. When I ever am ahead, more like. Can we all, every last one of us hor(ny)monal, persistent, and perceptive characters, really be wrong? Yes, actually, I guess we could, but we’re not. I’m not, either, and we’re not. As it happens, (as I’ve decided) this a job for a superhero. Or a mad scientist. A job for a supermadscientist that will result in their creation of a mega- padlock on my own hor(ny)monal, persistent, and perceptive feelings so that when my better, more intelligent, more proactive, staggeringly well- mannered self is in the mood for going against the unnatural beauties of contraceptives, she can wrench in the likely worn and poorly maintained key and reunite with the real recipe for a parenthood well executed.