Oh Baby.

Science has proven something, and it's going to cost me a lot of money.

In the words of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, "...the rabbit done died."

I'm going to be a dad, again.

Let my experience be a lesson to all. It doesn't matter how smart, charming, and attractive you are. You can still have mishaps, and some mishaps are very, very consequential. These mishaps especially occur in conjunction with a few glasses of any given fermented beverage.

About two and a half weeks following just an occasion, I was cooking up some hamburger for lunch (I'm on a low-carb diet--down ten pounds in thirteen days). Suddenly, from the bathroom I heard the all too familiar "Honey, come quick!" Usually, this means that I am on bug stomping duty. Needless to say, I was somewhat annoyed at being called away from the stove to kill an insect that was probably the size of a pencil tip.

I stood outside of the bathroom door and asked "What's up?"

I expected to hear, "Big spider. Kill it." Instead, I heard, "Look."

Although I knew that she was late on her period, I was not prepared for what I saw when I opened the door. Her cycle is pretty regular. She should not have been ovulating, and I should not have had an entire army at my disposal--if you get my meaning.

There she was, holding a pregnancy test. Her hand was trembling, but I got the picture really fast.

"Holy crap," I said (actually, I said something else, but it was one of George Carlin's Seven Words That You Can't Say on TV).

Although there are no false positives when it comes to these tests (only false negatives), I went to Rite Aid in search of a second opinion. It also was positive. I'm pretty sure that at some point I uttered a few other words that cannot be said on network TV. Hell, I'll bet that even HBO would be squeamish about what I said.

In an instant, I saw my Harley riding away--being driven by a baby, no less. I am also certain that this baby needed its diaper changed and would eventually go to an expensive college.

In that same instant, I saw myself--as all soon-to-be-parents do--seated at the Nobel Prize Awards ceremony, watching my offspring accept an award (the category is irrelevant).

I was torn.

Oh well. It's unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. I thought that I was done changing diapers and such, but that's not how it's meant to be (which is an ironic way to put it, since I don't believe in fate).

We spent the bulk of the afternoon looking for a bigger house, one with four bedrooms, and discussing potential names. I immediately excluded any names in the top ten most popular of both genders. We're thinking, for a boy: Robert Frank (after two of our dads--I have two, as my biological father has been deceased since I was five, and I already have a son named after him), Nicholas Scott (I have a deceased cousin by the name of Nicholas, but that's not what draws me to the name), Thomas More (one of my historical heroes and my confirmation name--yes, I'm the dorky adult neophyte who chooses such a confirmation name), or Thomas Jefferson (another historical favorite). For a girl, we might be settled on Alyssa Danielle (Alyssa was the hottest girl whom I knew from eighth to twelfth grade, and my wife wants an "Ally").

It just occurred to me that the PS3 and big screen TV will probably have to wait a few more years [insert any number of words that you can't say on TV. The combination should be lengthy to the point of disbelief].