I just spent the day with a friend of mine, who used to work in the music industry. In his day, this fellow was a legendary party animal. Not any normal party animal, but a fantasy party animal from Greek mythology amalgamated from the best partying bits of other animals: drinking capacity of the camel, nocturnal abilities of the owl, intense focus of a hawk and… nostrils of a race horse.

But he gave all that up when he went into rehab, quit the music industry, moved to a beautiful cottage in the countryside and subsequently got married three years ago. So I was shocked by his appearance when he invited me over the other day, having not seen each other in over a year.

He was a total wreck of Titanic proportions. I had not seen my friend so nervous, shattered and jittery since he quit the music industry. He couldn’t concentrate, was distracted and looked like he hadn’t slept more than 10 minutes at a stretch in months. He had dark bags under his wild, blood-shot, darting eyes. His previously pristine house – once featured in an interior design magazine – was an absolute pigsty.

I was concerned, worried that he had fallen off the wagon and was destroying everything he had worked so hard to achieve. I wondered if his calling me up and inviting me over was a cry for help. But then I saw I was wrong when he introduced me to the reason he had invited me over: his six month old daughter. This pooping, puking, pee-ing bundle of fat was responsible for my friend’s frightening state of being.

We spent the rest of the day barely able to converse as we chased around after the baby, stopping it from sticking its fingers into exposed sockets and grabbing bottles of drain cleaner from unlocked cupboards.

By the end of the two hours we spent together, it finally occurred to me that there’s a reason why I thought what I did when I first saw my friend: babies are the new coke habit.

They keep you up all night, suck all available cash out of your account and turn you into a gibbering idiot. They make their parents only want to hang out with other people with babies. And if you’re hooked on babies, when meeting people the first question you’ll expectantly ask with bated breath is ‘got any babies?’

Even more appropriate for the analogy is that, despite his sleep deprivation, poverty and general deterioration, my friend could not stop talking about how awesome babies are and that I could not possibly understand until I did it myself. Apparently I would not regret it and it would change my life.

Ice Age: The Meltdown video

I Do

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