Molly's Here

About eight hours ago, my good friend P. had a little baby girl, his first child. Actually, his wife had the baby. P. helped with the conception and was simply a helpful bystander today. They named their little girl "Molly." It's a name you don't hear much anymore. I think it's very cute. Both unassuming and confident, just like her mother.

When your friends have children for the first time, it's quite strange. I'm trying hard to reconcile P's new status as a father with everything about him that I have known and experienced first-hand over the past 21 years. We met back in 1985, when we were both working summer jobs in a supermarket not far from my parent's house in The Shire. I worked in produce, he in grocery. "Sussudio" by Phil Collins was climbing the charts, and my chest hair was really coming in. I was 17.

P. was pretty conservative back then, and I was even more to the political left than I am now. Instead of working, we would get into these ridiculous, melodramatic, sarcastic political debates that would escalate to the point where we would literally be screaming at each other from opposite aisles in the produce department about such hot button issues as: whether Reagan should be impeached for secretly selling arms to Iran in order to fund the "contras" in Nicaragua. (Reagan once famously referred to the greedy, mercenary contras as "The moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers." Enough said.) Picture Tucker Carlson and John Stewart yelling at each other while dressed in navy blue supermarket smocks, and you'll have an idea of how absurd we must have looked.

For shits and giggles, P. would get on the store intercom -- the little phone they use to announce special sale items or lost children -- and start paging famous world leaders.

"DANIEL ORTEGA, PLEASE REPORT TO THE FRONT REGISTER! MR. ORTEGA, PLEASE GO TO THE FRONT REGISTER."

"FIDEL CASTRO, WE HAVE A BREAKAGE IN AISLE SIX! EL COMMANDANTE, PLEASE GO TO AISLE SIX WITH SOME SAWDUST."

He would come out from the back room with a shit eating grin on his face, and we would bust out laughing because no one in the store knew the difference.

Another time, I had to bail his ass out of suburban jail when he got pegged for driving with a suspended license. I think he had too many unpaid speeding tickets in The Shire, and there was a warrant out for his arrest. The poor bastard had given me a ride home one summer night knowing this, and sure enough, he got pulled over after he dropped me off and they put him in the slammer. With his one phone call, he decided to call me to spring him from the brig. After an extended laughing jag, I drove down to the police station the next town over and bailed him out.

Years of fun and frolick have passed between then and now. We grew up, studied, got real jobs. He swore he wouldn't marry. Then he met someone who changed his mind. He said he would never have kids. Now he's a father. Funny how life has its own plan for us.

Welcome to the world, Molly. : )