by Nick Hoppe

My niece gave birth to a beautiful baby girl the other day, and my wife and I couldn’t wait to go see the little bundle of joy.

“Have you had your shots yet?” my niece asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Your whooping cough vaccine and your flu vaccine,” she replied matter-of-factly. “You can’t hold the baby until you get your shots.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “I have to get inoculated before I can see your baby?”

“You can see her, you just can’t hold her,” she answered. “Whooping cough is very dangerous for infants, and it’s going around.”

Fortunately, I hate holding little babies. But my wife made me get the shots anyway, just in case I got an urge. So, whooping cough- and flu-free, we went off to see the newest addition to our family.

As babies go, this one was pretty cute. Lots of hair, perfectly formed, nice color to her. All in all, a fine specimen. The only problem was she didn’t do anything except eat, sleep and cry.

My wife made a beeline for her, though, and after displaying the Band-Aid on her upper arm which proved she’d been shot, grabbed the baby from my niece and started oohing and aahing.

“When does she smile or laugh?” I asked as I watched my wife make stupid faces at the baby, who was sound asleep.

My niece’s husband, who is an attorney and has read every baby book known to mankind, was quick with an answer. “Six weeks, but it might be just gas. You can pretty much count on it at three months.”

I got up to go. “Cute baby. Call me when she does something.”

My wife wasn’t going anywhere. “Oh, look,” she squealed. “She’s opening her eyes!!!!”

My niece and her husband beamed with pride. There were a couple of other people visiting, and they all gathered around to watch the baby open her eyes.

“She can’t really see anything,” announced my niece’s husband. “She can’t even see colors yet. And she certainly can’t see you.”

“Time to go,” I announced. “I got a needle poked in my arm for pretty much nothing.” My wife tried to hand the baby to me, but I resisted. Having her open her eyes was more than enough excitement for one evening. I had seen enough.

That’s when she started crying. I knew it wasn’t my fault, because I didn’t even exist in her little world. But she sure wasn’t happy, although I’d never know because she can’t smile yet.

She could sure cry, though. How a little 7-pound bundle of flesh could produce such an ear-splitting sound remains a mystery, but apparently she could do it through most of her waking hours, according to her sleep-deprived parents.

“I’ve got a confession to make,” said my niece’s husband as he rushed to the kitchen to get a bottle of pumped breast milk. “I called her a little asshole last night.”

“It was a moment of weakness!!!” he explained as the mothers in the room gasped and I nodded in understanding. “We had been up all night and she wouldn’t stop crying.”

I was loving it. No father could love their baby more than this young man, but a little honesty is refreshing. Babies can be self-obsessed little assholes at times. In some cases, most of the time.

I had four of them, and as much as I fight the passage of time and the effects of aging, I have no strong desire to go through the baby years again. Been there, done that.

My niece’s little baby finished her bottle and immediately started crying again. She couldn’t be hungry. Maybe she had gas, without the fake smile.

All I knew was that it was time to go, and this time my wife didn’t resist. We had loved the new little addition to our extended family, and now we could leave it.

Someday, maybe soon, we’ll have grandchildren of our own. And I’m sure I’ll be a great grandfather, as soon as the kid does something interesting.

Ask Nick something interesting at le*****@********un.com.

by Amy Alkon

Q: I recently started dating this new girl. I asked her whether her lips and boobs are real (and it turns out they are). However, I did call her out on having a nose job. She admitted it but seemed kind of upset. It’s the truth. And she’s beautiful, however she got that way. What’s the problem?—Just Curious

A: At least you didn’t hold her up to the light like a hundred-dollar bill to look for the hologram.

The fact that you have a thought is not reason enough to let it out to roam the streets, exposing itself to the ladies. As I write in Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck, at the root of manners is empathy. So before speaking to someone—especially someone you’re dating—ask yourself, “Gee, wonder whether she’ll feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I point to her boobs and ask, ‘Yours or cubic zirconia?’”

The reality is, people often spin the truth to present themselves in a better light, just as businesses do. (Your cable company does not really “value your time,” and unless you’re a wino, I’m pretty sure Miller High Life is not “the Champagne of beers.”) However, evolutionary psychology research by William Tooke and Lori Camire finds that men and women tend to fudge their presentation in different ways. Because women evolved to prioritize men with the ability to “provide,” men are far more likely than women to be deceptive about their finances. (You sure don’t see women doing as a male friend of mine did. He lived in a dumpy apartment and drove an old Nissan that looked like it got used for soccer practice by Godzilla and Mothra, but he had me take a photo of him for his online dating profile in a beautiful neighborhood—in front of some stranger’s Porsche.)

On the flip side, because men evolved to prioritize physical attractiveness in women (with the features men find beautiful reflecting health and fertility), women are most likely to be deceptive about their looks (those factory installed by the assembly line boss known as Mother Nature). That’s why women are extremely sensitive about a man parsing their appearance—as men are when a woman sizes up their finances and position. So, for the future, keep in mind that there’s a reason the term is “beauty secrets” and not “beauty announcements.” To reset the balance—so she isn’t insecure about your feelings regarding her appearance—get in the habit of saying something nice about what she’s wearing and if she looks particularly sparkly some night. And do try to maintain perspective on the level of transformation here. She was merely born with a different nose; she wasn’t born “Alan” or “Bruce.”

Q: I’m  a reformed party girl. I used to go out, get drunk, and sleep with lots of guys on the first date (if you could even call some of these “dates”). I am older now and am ready for something serious. But after hearing me talking about how I used to be, guys campaign for first-date sex. We’ll start making out a little, and I get into it and end up doing stuff before I really want to.—Regrets

A: No guy wants to hear, “I really like you, so I’ll make you spend months jumping through hoops while catching a little ball in your teeth instead of having sex with you right away like I did with those 6,000 other guys.” In fact, “I don’t do that … anymore” is pretty much a challenge to a guy to try for the same deal the other guys got. So consider talking about the person you are instead of the person you were. In fact, you might avoid going into any real detail—ever—about the old you. As psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker points out in The Stuff of Thought, the ability for a person to deny or overlook what he hasn’t exactly been told is a powerful force. (No guy wants to think about all the ghosts of penis past.)

You can also preplan to make it hard for yourself to cheat, a technique called “precommitment,” recommended by economist Thomas Schelling. For example, because alcohol and moonlight tend to combine to form a waterslide into your bed, you could schedule your first few dates at a less sex-friendly time and place, such as 10am at the coffee bar. Then if you go for a post-date walk, at least it won’t be “the walk of shame.” Before long, you should find that you have a new habit—ending dates with “looking forward to seeing you again” instead of looking for your panties under a guy’s bed.

For more trivia questions (and answers!) see Howard Rachelson’s Trivia Café every week in the Pacific Sun.

Answer: St. Francis of Assisi—a venerated religious figure who lived in Assisi, Italy in the 12th century.