My mom called me shortly before 5am one morning to talk to me about this blog. It’s okay, I was not only already awake and walking the dog, I was on my third Hershey bar of the day. Of course it was a good time to talk.

She had read an article about some baby daddy situation in Tennessee, and really thought I should blog about it. I was ready to politely decline since I don’t take requests and since I did go to college to do this (no I didn’t, I went to college to simultaneously get a degree in education and learn how to hollow out a gas station cigar and stuff it with weed to avoid having to roll my own joints), but the more she kept talking, the more I decided there might be something to this story.

I looked it up and sure enough, some dipshit in Tennessee wanted to name her third out-of-wedlock child “Messiah,” and the judge ruled hell no.

Let’s break down the awesome that’s involved in this story:

First, the reason the parents even appeared before the judge was because the baby daddy was mad that the mamma didn’t give the child his last name. He didn’t feel compelled to give the mamma a wedding ring, but by golly we’re gonna make sure the whole world knows whose kid this is. Trust me, statistically we’re gonna figure it out since he just condemned the baby to higher illiteracy rates, a better chance of a childhood living below the poverty level, and a future of aspiring to work for minimum wage as an adult. (NOTE: not condemning single parents here, but if you have to go to court over what your ex-girlfriend names your child, Ivy League isn’t looking too good for you.)

Second, this is mamma’s third baby. I can’t wait until they’re all adults sitting around the Christmas dinner table and one of them finally gets drunk enough to break a beer bottle and demand to know why his brother’s name is God and he got stuck with Micah. The other brother, Maison (whose name is French for “house”), will remain numbly silent since his name didn’t even get spelled right, let alone deified.

Third, she wanted the name Messiah because it “went with” his brothers’ names. No, honey, you know what would have gone nicely with his brothers’ names? The same last name.

Now, I realize I just got all political and judgmental, and I apologize. Let me get back to being alcoholically funny instead. This mother is not thinking this thing through. WHAT happens when you name your baby God? Apart from a lifetime spent changing water to wine and dying on a cross at the hands of some twisted Roman soldiers all because the drunken citizens at the feast blurted out the wrong name at the “release a prisoner day” ceremony?

That baby is never going to wipe his own ass.

He’s God. You said so. He’s going to suck your tits until he’s old enough to order his own Happy Meals. He’s going to make you change his diapers until he’s big enough to switch over to Depends. He’s never going to eat his vegetables or clean his room. Because you told him he’s God.

Luckily, he’s also going to get his ass handed to him on a daily basis by all the kids at school who are not willing to recognize his divine authority. That will take him down a peg, probably in a very confusing way, and turn him into a non-believer. Sadly, the judge picked the dumbest of all reasons for not letting mamma do this to her baby: “Labeling this child `Messiah’ places an undue burden on him that as a human being, he cannot fulfill.” If she had said, “I’m not letting you be this stupid to another human being,” she would have gotten away with it. Instead, the unconstitutionality of her ruling means we have another Messiah to deal with. I hope it turns out better for this one than the last guy, because this one doesn’t actually have the street cred to back it up.