Straight People: A Spotter's Guide to the Fascinating World of Heterosexuals (15 page)

One of the unique qualities of Heterosexuals is their ability to reproduce by simply forgetting to wear a condom, forgetting to take a birth control pill, or simply going out to dinner with Jon Gosselin. Or, of course, in many cases, by mutually deciding that it’s time to start a family with their opposite-sex partner.

The Heterosexual reproduction process is a truly amazing thing that takes nine months to happen. Here’s how it works.

First, you need
two
Heterosexuals, or one Heterosexual Female and a very, very, very drunk gay guy. Sometimes, these two Heterosexuals love each other (as in the case of your newly married friends), and other times they have just met while watching the Lakers game at the Pig and Whistle bar I discovered earlier. Whether they’re in love or not, if the Heterosexuals have unprotected Heterosexual intercourse,
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they will likely create a baby. Heterosexual intercourse can take upwards of an hour or sometimes only a few minutes if the Heterosexual Male hasn’t had a lot of action lately.

Once the seed has been planted in the egg (see, I’d look like an idiot trying to explain that), the two things combine to form a new cell called a blastocyst, which, despite how it
sounds, is
not
a racial slur. This blastocyst begins traveling through the fallopian tubes (this shit is crazy, right?!) toward the uterus, which takes roughly three days, which is kind of ridiculous when you realize that you can drive from Georgia to California in a matter of three days. Sure, you’d be doing a lot of driving and it’s best to take shifts with a friend so you don’t fall asleep at the wheel, and if you make it more like a week you get to stop in historical places like the Alamo or the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn. I know a guy who watched all the seasons of
Damages
in just three days. And by
guy
, I mean me. However, three days is the amount of time it takes to get that blasted blastocyst through those fallopian tubes and into the spacious uterus.

Once Mr. (or Ms.) Blastocyst gets to the uterus, it attaches itself onto the walls of the uterus, the way you might attach a poster of Selena Gomez to your wall if you’re a teenage boy or a weird lesbian. The uterus is basically a hotel, like a really nice, comfortable hotel. Not five stars by any means, but maybe three? OK, two stars, depending on the uterus. And it’s not all that spacious, either, unless you’re looking at it by New York City hotel room standards, in which case it’s
huge
. The view is shit, literally, but it’s comfortable and the blastocyst doesn’t mind staying there for roughly nine months. Once attached to the walls of this Sheraton Inn & Suites (a.k.a. the uterus), the blastocyst starts to develop into an embryo, and after four weeks it’s roughly the size of a poppy seed. A poppy seed is very specific, not a sunflower seed, not a flaxseed, but a poppy seed.
Think about
that
the next time you order a poppy-seed bagel with cream cheese and lox.

Now, the female has this poppy seed attached to the uterine wall and she’s figured out she’s pregnant, or she hasn’t, in which case her family submits her for that
I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant
reality show and she gets to proudly tell all her friends, “I’m gonna be on TV!” There’s also a placenta and an umbilical cord forming, which is how the poppy seed that’s gonna one day be her pissed-off teenage daughter who keeps running up her Verizon bill is able to grow.

The pregnant Heterosexual Female will start to gain weight and have extreme mood swings. One minute she might be super-happy to be alive, but the next minute she’s craving pickles covered in brown gravy and blaming her spouse for everything, from making her feel so terrible to the existence of the Kardashians
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in general. The female’s nerves are incredibly high-strung and what she really wants is a nice stiff drink to ease her tension, but she can’t do that because she’s pregnant. Dammit.

Over the next several months, the pregnant Heterosexual Female goes through many other side effects. Things to expect include nausea, tiredness, tender breasts, and a sudden emotional reaction to that Taylor Swift song about moms.

As the due date approaches, the Heterosexuals get very caught up in baby fever.
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Oftentimes, a family member or friend will host a baby shower, traditionally a females-only luncheon without the added bonus of booze, where everyone brings gifts and pretends to have an emotional attachment to tiny pairs of Crocs and pyramids built entirely out of diapers.

If the pregnant Heterosexual Female’s mother or mother-in-law is on hand, the female will go through a series of stressful trips to Heterosexual meccas, such as Babies “R” Us. By the end of these nine months, the Heterosexual Female will have started to resent her mother and/or mother-in-law with the kind of ferocity reserved for war criminals and Red Sox fans.

The female will also begin to tire of the Heterosexual Male in her life. Everything he does will drive her crazy, and she honestly can’t believe he plays the TV that loud, and what’s that stupid noise he makes when he chews wasabi peas?

There’s a tiny person lodged inside her, so she’s increasingly uncomfortable and bloated all the time. It is during this period that the Heterosexual Female begins to wonder if she just should have gotten a parakeet instead.

Finally, the big day comes and the Heterosexual Female has her baby and all hardship is forgiven. It’s highly likely she will never see her Heterosexual friends ever again, or when she does
see them, she will only discuss children’s bowel movements and the hit television show
Yo Gabba Gabba
. Either way, the new parents have a sweet, gorgeous newborn baby to shower with love and affection, and the great circle of life continues. And, finally, the Heterosexual Female can order herself a very well-deserved drink.

Heterosexuals will always assume you want to hold their babies, and if you want to get through the encounter without any trouble, I highly recommend just holding the baby and saying it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, no matter how much the baby looks like an unripened apricot. Some babies aren’t as cute as others, and in these instances you will need to lie, because in the eyes of Heterosexuals, there is nothing that has ever or will ever be as cute as their baby.

Understanding how the Heterosexual Male and Female brain works can give you a better understanding of how they process thoughts, feelings, interests, and emotions. This is a chart of what makes up the Heterosexual Male’s brain.

The Heterosexual Male Brain

Very interesting, huh? Now take a look at the Heterosexual Female’s brain.

The Heterosexual Female Brain

You are now prepared to deal with the major milestones in the Heterosexual Lifestyle. If you have been paying close attention, you and your Heterosexual counterparts should be able to happily coexist and continue to teach each another about your equally swell cultures.