Confessions of a Stuttering Baby Doll

Confessions of a Stuttering Baby Doll

My name is Baby One of Four and you probably recognize my unchanging plastic smile from all those childcare classes you dread in room 203. I am your worst nightmare, but before we get into how I’ll make your life miserable in the coming weeks I will first tell you how many rotten things you ungrateful brats have done to poor little me.

I was bought as an educational tool for this wretched high school about three years ago. Back then I was the most updated and cheerful baby you could have met. I was hot off the production line and grinning like a fool when they shoved me into a pool of packing peanuts and sealed up my temporary coffin for shipping. I arrived at the school a bit dazed but otherwise I didn’t have a scratch on me. Coming along with me on my trip was my two sisters and of course my little dark-skinned friend whom I’m certain was bought just to be politically correct to all those minorities that come through this tiny flea-bitten school every twenty or so years. Actually, to be quite honest with you I think Baby Four of Four has a better life because of his political correctness; at least he doesn’t have to go through as many bad babysitters as I do.

Every two weeks I am assigned to a new snot-nosed high schooler and let me tell you, I’ve been through it all! These kids think they’re just all that but as soon as I come into the house their world falls into shambles. OK, so I admit it, I’m here to make their lives miserable by crying just as they start to fall asleep and to keep doing this night after night. I never cease to find the joy in watching some kid in their nightgown walk half asleep across the room and stare down at me with angry bloodshot eyes. “Just one more hour! One more hour and I would have been up!”

However my life isn’t all fun and games, these kids are downright terrible babysitters on most occasions. They bring me home in my huge carrying chair and stare down at me like, “Not you.” They drag me on the bus hitting every seat as they go by, giving me baby whiplash. And as if that’s not bad enough every time I get a new sitter I get a new name. I’m told I am an exceptionally ugly baby therefore I usually get exceptionally ugly names like Rufus, Arnold, and Barnaby. At least I’m not a girl as my sisters have been named Agnes so many times it’s sickening. At other times the wittier students give me catty little names like Mama’s Little Accident, Trace Baby Smith, Baby Oops, Stupid Baby Doll, The Plastic Devil, etc. On other occasions I get these girls that are all enthusiastic about getting me and give me names even a confused tourist couldn’t pronounce. I’m just a baby doll, I don’t need a name with 30 syllables, nor do I want to be named after some horrible boy band. I shudder at the thought.

It’s coming home that’s the real fun part. Meeting the dull dry humored parents is always a favorite part of my day. “You’re not bringing that thing anywhere near me.” “And what is this supposed to teach you?” “Wow, that was a quick pregnancy.” “And where’d this little brat come from?” Even funnier still is meeting the younger siblings. “Cool! Can I see it?” “Aww! It’s adorable! Why is it stuttering?”

Yes, that’s right, I stutter. I used to cry but now I have hit the wall so many times and with such force that my poor little speech box is capable of nothing but this peculiar mechanical stuttering. I guess as far as androids go, I sound like a drunk. Most of the girls find this so amusing they hold me up in the air and yell, “Listen to my baby stutter! Isn’t that cuuuuute!?” I’m only an infant; I don’t need a speech impediment. The boys are usually the culprit for throwing me against the walls but I’ve had my days with the girls too.

Femme fatale; it’s a phrase you’ll never forget being a stuttering baby doll. I see them bat their eyes at the nerdy computer types and say in that sugar sweet voice, “Oh could you please do something about this doll? It’s keeping me up allll night, and I don’t know what to do…” Then those greasy oil monkeys get a hold of my back and a screw driver and take out my beloved batteries leaving me to lay there in a coma for two weeks only to be plugged in again and my motherboard messed with to give the ungrateful brat an A.

Not all students can be blessed with wit and brains however. I am programmed to cry when I haven’t moved for a certain period of time so once the boys (and some inpatient gals I can’t name due to legal reasons) hear me crying they pick me up by the feet, swing me over their head and place me back in my booster seat with that satisfactory grin like, “That’ll do. Let’s see if you’ll cry again.”

I’m not as bad as a real baby, honestly. I don’t smell, I don’t need baths, my head is always bald and I am not even capable of drooling. Sometimes this can be quite sad however because instead of a nice warm bottle to suck on I have to make due with a cold metal key harshly jabbed into my plastic mouth. The worst indignity of all I don’t know who came up with but I could really strangle them now. Apparently the magnet in my diaper, which notifies my program I’m soiled and starts my incessant crying, is also the same magnet my feeding key is made of. Some witty little brat figured if they made me wear my diaper on my head that the magnet would prevent me from getting hungry during the night. So here I sit quietly in my gaudy booster seat, stuttering my brains out because some brat is trying to smother me by putting a diaper on my head. Dear lord, all I need is a cheap spandex suit and I could be the next comic book hero flying through the streets helping infants in distress. My name; Baby Diaper Boy.

So the next time you feel like throwing something at the wall or finding a new and unusual use for pampers then please, I beg you, go mess with that five-pound flour sack like they did in the old days!