Mourning the loss of another sensible, financially sound lifestyle.

We have several friends who are about to have their first kid. I wanted to make a list of things they should do before it's out of its convenient carrying case.

Take a nap. Go out to eat and then see a movie. Nap during the movie. Then go back out for a late meal. Wake up and have a three and a half hour breakfast where the only person you're worried about running off is you after your second pot of bottomless coffee. Break something glass and leave it on the floor, and then stay up all night playing Nintendo. Cuss. Cuss like a fucking shit-faced cockwad sailor with a penchant for pussy, tits and ass. Cuss until you can't stand yourself.  Cunt.  Wear formal attire just for the hell of it. If you're the father, drink. This is your moment to relish one of the little known highlights of a pregnancy; a designated driver with big boobs. Mom, you need to be sober for many reasons, but being lucid is so important to savor every moment of every peaceful meal, every sip of something without floaties, every solo trip to the bathroom, and every conversation with an adult. Nothing will ever be yours again, and in about a year you'll hear yourself talk and wonder when the hell you became that annoying parent you swear you'd never be. Don't go to McDonalds. Don't do it. You'll get plenty. Go to a real restaurant and order your food cooked slow. Get several appetizers, several desserts and extra steak knives just to carelessly place around the table. Read. Read with porn playing loudly in the background. Listen to gangster rap and the Dropkick Murphys. Impulsively go to a concert you don't even care about.  Call your friend with kids and ask if they want to go. Challenge yourself to see how last minute you can do things. As you leave the house breathe deep the air of spontaneity, maybe leave the porn playing.  Appreciate logic.  Watch sports, or whatever your favorite show is. First, switch to PBS to make sure cartoons are on, then flip away to your favorite show. Do this over and over while loudly wishing horrible, violent things on Elmo, Bob the Builder and that shit Caillou. Cuss while having sex. Make some noise you've never made before. Do an animal impersonation. Break the bed. Book a trip on a plane to wherever. Pack a bunch of liquids and knives so the delays in security are all your own. Relish controlling your own chaos. Board the craft and be sure to be indignant about the crying kids. It is a shame that some people should be so thoughtless. Get a convertible coupe rental car with barely enough room for yourselves. Go to a body of water and be careless about the shoreline.  Go to Vegas and get a hooker.  Pay her by the hour to discuss what her parents did wrong.  Vocalize criticism of your spouse.  Verbalize all the negative things about the people you know.   Go.  Go now and be free with your dark, inner, nonparental beast.  Love the animals in your house.  Talk to the plants.  Go to all the parties you can and be the life by saying you'll never take your kids for fast food and you'll never sit them in front of the TV and you'll never buy them those stupid light-up shoes.  Go mofos!  It's time to spread your wings and fart like a drunk trucker.  Get over yourself and laugh at burps and take notes on all the stupid shit you do all day just so you'll remember what you did with your time.  Get on with it!  Get to the beach, start a bar fight in Mexico, cook something that's not shaped like a zoo animal!  Smell broccoli like it's a rare flower, put saffron and thyme and basil in things.  Eat a pan of brownies, chug a wine cooler, smoke something and don't give a damn who sees you do it.  Celebrate the shit out of your birthday and buy absolutely nothing for no one for Christmas.  The clock is ticking. The person you know as you is about to die, so live it up. Fill that bucket list up with debauchery and opulence and vast swaths of sloth without once somebody rubbing a booger on you.  Or wipe a boog on yourself while shouting something morbid about the tooth fairy. 

Go.  Godspeed.  Explore what's beyond that childproof gate.  And whatever you do, tell us about it.  You are our Magellan and we are starved for your spicy adventures.