Tales From the Crib

In a world full of misinformation, I believe it is important to set the record straight. Future generations of historians will be combing through our incessant bullshit, searching for random corns of truth. That’s why I would like to give a true account of my birth story, so that others may grok easily.

My birth was both expected and celebrated. Somewhere off Route 4 in the nether regions of Norman, Oklahoma, there is a sign proclaiming, “TOM Starita fell here,” but we’ll get to the reasons why later on. My mum, a young, twenty-two-year-old Scottish lass named Kathy, worked the counter at “The Pigging Out” diner. My father, Bill, a seventy-nine-year-old Australian immigrant, owned a rather successful brass mining company, aptly named “Bill’s Got Brass.” He chased after my mother for years, with little to no success due to two reasons—the first being a fifty-five-year gap in age. The second, my mum’s parents were vehemently opposed to their daughter dating an aborigine from the outback.

Despite the obstacles, Bill never gave up hope that one day this woman would bear his seed. Once a month for three years, Bill sent flowers, candy, balloons, singing telegrams, mime-o-grams, pajamas, the meat of the month club, named a star after her, buffalo head, buffalo tail, and other exciting and enticing gifts with no luck whatsoever. It wasn’t until he sent a nine-pound box of potatoes, accidentally containing a brass fixture inside, that things began to change. Because they were firmly anti-Bill, my grandparents never inquired about what my father did for a living. The moment they realized he had access to unlimited brass, and a large bank account, my grandfather drove Kathy over to his house in his 1975 Bristol 412, aka The Lemonhead.

Two weeks later, marriage.

Two months later, a positive stripe.

And on August 18th, 1978, all their wettest dreams and wishes were fulfilled. My parents were driving down Route 4 when my mum felt the intense pressure associated with childbirth. My dad spotted a friendly patch of grass and pulled the car over to the side. There they were, alone, listless like a breakfast table in an otherwise empty room. There were no cell phones back then, nor any passing vehicles. It was up to my dad now to get the job done. Thankfully, his Australian heritage spoke to his soul. His people had delivered countless kangaroo births; this would be no different.

*******************************************************************

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada, a young farmer named Phillip sat in the barn, milking his cow. Phillip was a deaf man, had been and always would be — and he relied on the vibrations coming off from the cow to guide the milking process.

Suddenly, a bright light filled the room — even though it was already day. Phillip shielded his eyes and found himself staring at the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Phillip immediately dropped to his knees in worship.

“Hark,” The angel said. And Philip, a poor lip reader, merely stared since he didn’t know the word hark. The angel stared back at Phillip.

“Hark!” Phillip blinked a couple of times.

“HARK!” The angel cried in a booming voice. Phillip, now completely petrified, crawled into a ball and began to sob.

“Fuck it,” and the angel left.

******************************************************************

Less than thirty seconds after the angel departed from Phillip’s sight, I was born, squirting out like a water gun filled with cheese whiz. My father, expecting the slimy birth of the kangaroo instead of the slippery birth of a human, fumbled the handoff. I fell out of his hands and into a robin’s nest, which just so happened to be laying directly in front of my dad — who was too locked in on my mom’s pristine vagina to notice. Years later, locals put up the famous “TOM Starita fell here” sign as well as the souvenir stand to properly grift the men and women who make the pilgrimage.

Fun Fact: TOM Starita merchandise account for 82% of the entire economy of Norman, Oklahoma.

Following the afterbirth, Bill wanted to name me after his favorite uncle back home — Paul — but my mother wanted nothing to do with it. She preferred the name Jake, but dad knew a guy back home named Jake, who had a curse placed on him by some Aborigines and was afraid that the curse would somehow transfer over to me. Their marriage had hit its first bump in the road, and there seemed no bridging this significant gap. Fortunately for me, they had apple sauce.

You see, my parents loved apple sauce, the side dish that moonlighted as a main dish in their home. A staple at dinner, it could also be found at breakfast and even a midnight snack. But apple sauce wasn’t simply food — it was a lifestyle.

My mom used it as a facial wash, believing the apples to have rejuvenating properties. My dad bathed in a large drum filled with apple sauce twice a week, believing the apple pheromones (or applemones as he called them) gave him the ability to be a better businessman. His rationale? Everyone loved apple sauce; everyone loved the smell of apple sauce, and therefore if you smelled apple sauce on a man, you knew you could do business with him.

Anyway…

On one particular Thursday, three months into my still nameless life, my father had a tough day and didn’t feel like talking much during dinner. My mother, feeling ignored, asked him to pass the apple sauce. When my father reached for the jar, he saw the label reflected in his glass:

TOMM’S.

(I failed to mention my father had an acute form of dyslexia, in which words would appear however was most convenient to my story)

Immediately he stood up and announced that their son should have the honor of being named after the greatest food ever invented. And that’s how I got the name TOM.

Life was perfect. Dad’s company boomed, and as a result, he was able to spoil his family. They had the largest house in town, three cars, a name finally picked out for me, a pond reasonably filled with koi fish, and no ceiling on their future.

Until the brass fields of Tecumseh dried up.

I was two years old and can vaguely remember my parents near the soon to be diminished koi pond talking in a mixture of screams and panicked hush tones about their future, or suddenly their lack thereof. Tecumseh's brass fields were only the biggest in the state of Oklahoma, if not the entire southeast. Thousands of families depended on their consistent production of brass; millions worldwide took for granted all the fixtures, doorknobs, and pipes created via these magical fields. No one knows why exactly the fields suddenly died. The only certainty was with no brass to sell to the various companies; dad was forced to liquidate his assets, sell the company, relinquish the remaining koi, and get a handyman’s job at the local YMCA: the house, the cars, everything gone.

From millionaires to chumps in a matter of days.

Because my dad no longer had access to brass or any money, my grandparents refused to help them. Dad, being a resourceful man, did what any man in his position would do. He dragged his family to the famous Oklahoma rainforest and built us a treehouse. There we lived for three months, as time, resources, and love all seemingly circled the drain. We were down to our last jar of apple sauce when someone knocked on our tree. My dad scaled-down the rope and encountered two beatniks from New York. Being a man of the land, my dad did not trust two individuals wearing berets and smoking filtered cigarillos inside obscenely long cigarette holders. He gestured wildly, like a pissed off orangutan forced to dance at the zoo. The beatniks stood firm and produced a suitcase full of money.

My dad stopped his flailing.

The two beatniks had solved his problem. My dad reached for the handle, but the male beatnik wagged his index finger back and forth. This wasn’t a donation; this was a business transaction.

They wanted to buy me.

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