FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER

In the novel/movie Dune, Paul Atredies, new to the harsh desert climate of the planet Arakis, puts on his own Stillsuit. The Arakis native Liet Kynnes remarks that someone must have helped him put it on because he wore the complex suit designed to keep you alive in the desert not only correctly, but in the fashion of the Fremen who dwell in the desert. This of course ends up being foreshadowing, showing the intuitiveness and brilliance of the young leader who in time becomes a planetary messiah.

I bring this up because I have a similarly difficult task ahead of me. Or so I've been led to think. Keeping a baby healthy, alive, fed, and happy for 18 years apparently pales in comparison to the challenge most individuals face installing a car seat. I've heard tales of it taking up to 8 hours. 8 HOURS, to run a strap under a piece of plastic. And then the chances, after you actually manage to thread that labyrinth, that you've actually done it right are slim to none, guaranteeing that car crash or not, your baby will somehow find a way to shoot out of that base and through the front windshield.

You guys are morons. I'm calling it now.

I will be the Muad'Dib of the planet Graco. Sometime in the next couple of days I will install this car seat base in no time flat. Then, when I visit Ikea for meatballs and a carseat inspection, the Snugrideologist will look at me with an expression of stifled excitement and say,

"You've installed a car seat base before."

and I will say "No, never, this is my first time."

And he will gasp and drop to his knees and yell "WE HAVE FOUND HIM! THE CARSEATZ HADERACH!" and one by one I will be surrounded by people in yellow polo shirts all dropping to their knees to praise one so brilliant.

Or I'll get pissed while putting it in and toss it into the street. Time will tell.

-GD