Here are our Jack O’ Lanterns for Halloween 2007.

Cute, eh?

Give me a good name, Mom!

On August 17, my wife gave birth to our first child, a gorgeous baby… girl? Yes, a girl! I told my wife. “It’s a GIRL!” The nurse asked, “What’s her name?” My wife and I gave each other simultaneous “frowny faces.” Name? We didn’t have a name yet. Now THIS was going to be the hard part.

Naming a child is an important part of parenting. Give a child a good name, someday she might be a senator. Give a child a bad name, she might end up as, say, a senator. That’s a bad example, but you get the idea.

A good name is more than just choosing a couple of words that don’t spell out something bad in initials (we considered Bethany Michelle, but decided that “BM”, short for bowel movement, was less than ideal). A name can define future greatness, respect, fame, wealth, and power, not to mention the likelihood of making a livelihood selling hubcaps.

Think about it: all the great men and women of history received names, presumably at birth, that jibed perfectly with their future accomplishments. Winston Churchill’s parents knew enough not to call him “Buddy.” Katherine Hepburn would never have been a star if her name had been “Cindi.” Richard Nixon perfectly fulfilled his nickname, “Dick.”

The weird thing about naming a child is that you’re expected to figure it out by the first day of the baby’s life. The way I figure it, you should be allowed to wait until the kid is at least three years old, so you know whether your son is a “Moses” or a “Hugh,” or whether your daughter is a “Stella” or a “Bella.”

My wife and I had started the naming process months ago. Complicating this process was our decision to wait until the baby’s birth to find out the baby’s gender. (In fact, my wife had been sure that it was a boy.) We filled up a ragged spiral notebook with various ideas, like Thurston and Maude. Well, those were my ideas. My wife’s ideas were less eccentric.

A few names were easy to rule out: Adolph, Judas, Napoleon, Benedict, Monica, and William Jefferson Clinton. Also, a friend warned that giving a boy either “Ray” or “Lee” as a middle name practically guaranteed that he would end up on death row.

Making matters worse, we had to consider the “meaning” behind each name. For instance, my first name, Matthew, means “one who humps sod.” I did not know this until I purchased a book called “Baby Names And More Baby Names,” which I found at our local supermarket for only 99 cents. It saved us from making many horrible mistakes. For example, here are some of the names we considered and the surprising meanings behind them:

Aaron: He who shoplifts enema kits
Albert: Nasal extract eater
Angela: Crazy as a vegan stranded on Pig Island
Barbara: Talks to cows
Brandt: Hummer of show tunes
Daniel: One who neuters monkeys
David: He who chugs yak urine
Erik: Collector of eight-track tapes
George: Dumb as a stump
James: Beware the engorged goiter
Kathy: Jar of gravy
Linda: The blacksmith’s whore
Lori: Non-sharer of gum
Michael: Eleven toed hillbilly
Rachel: Capable of wild sex acts in a canoe
Robyn: Smelly!
Stephanie: Lover of the hybrid yellow-meated watermelon
Suzy: Sees Elvis in her drawers
Tim: Often sweaty

Of course, we had help with this decision. For example, two girls who live across the street, Sarah and Paige, were talking with my wife one recent afternoon.

“I know what you should name the baby if it’s a girl!” said Sarah.

“Oh, me too!” said Paige.

“What’s that?” asked my wife.

“Sarah!” said Sarah.

“Or Paige!” said Paige.

So on the day of our baby’s birth, my wife and I came to a decision: we would name our baby Madeline Rosa Farr. Rosa is a family name, from my grandmother, who made legendary fruit pies, played the organ in church for more than 50 years, and called my granddad “Dumbhead” and “Deafpost” whenever he deserved it, which was often. Madeline is simply a pretty name, which means “the prettiest, smartest baby in the whole wide world who will grow up to be a multimillionaire and buy her father a vintage 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gull Wing sports coupe.”

Now that we’ve got this name thing figured out, the next 20 years of parental duties should be a breeze.

A note to readers about the torment of humor writing
In the second paragraph, I use the term “frowny face.” But how do you spell frowny face? Similar words are no help: A wonderful treat that you buy at the church bake sale, sprinkled with powdered sugar, is a “brownie.” But a duck’s smallest, softest feathers are described as “downy.” These are the extremely difficult, sometimes dangerous, decisions that humor writers such as myself must make, simply for a laugh. And truth be told, it wasn’t even that funny.

In one month, I’ll be a father.

Strangely enough, I’m not particularly worried about taking care of our new child. How hard can it be? My wife and I have a free magazine subscription to “Today’s Parent” magazine, a six pack of bibs, and a coupon for plastic diapers. We’ve got everything we need.

What I’m really worried about is being “responsible.”

Up until now, my approach to responsibility has been avoidance and denial – I avoided all responsibility if possible (and denied taking it if I had to). Unfortunately, I now am faced with the possibility that if I act really stupid and kill or maim myself, it might have repercussions beyond a few weeks. There will be a very small boy or girl who might never get to know me — and that would be a true tragedy.

With this life-changing event looming over me, I realize now that I’ve been way too responsible already. I didn’t realize how much I could have been messing around. Why have I been gainfully employed for the last 15 years? What was I thinking?

I’ve got 31 days — no, the baby could come early. Twenty days. I’ve got 20 days to act horribly irresponsibly, disregarding any consequences of my actions. Then it’s all over. I’ll have to be responsible.

To be truly reckless in a short time, one must have a plan, a timetable. Every day counts.

Day One: Quit my job. Use profane gestures and the phrase “Your mother stinks like a yak.” (It would be far too responsible to simply ask for a four-week leave of absence.)

Day Two: Shave my head. It will take too long to grow hair down past my shoulders, so an ugly shaved head will have to do. Mine will be particularly frightening with scars and lumps. Next, get a big tattoo across my back of Pamela Anderson, naked, riding a Harley and toting a machine gun, just above the motto, “I Hate People.”

Day Three: Buy a 1966 Corvette convertible with giant chrome side pipes and a big block 427ci, 450hp engine with a “power bulge” hood. Ha! No baby seat will fit in this puppy! This is all the more irresponsible because I will purchase the car with a loan I can’t afford since I just quit my job (day one).

Day Four: Visit my bank and make a comprehensive withdrawal. Buy a very expensive Armani suit, a thick gold ring, and Italian boots made from the dried skin of spotted owls. Drive to Vegas in my ‘66 Vette with the top down. Forgo all use of sunscreen.

Day Five: Bet everything on 22. Sleep in car.

Day Six: Siphon gasoline from a Cadillac. Drive to Alaska. Buy a large hunting knife and some waterproof matches. Kill and eat a polar bear.

Day Seven: Sell Popsicles to Eskimos.

Day Eight: Fly to Lebanon. Join the Foreign Legion. Cross the Mohave Desert on a camel.

Day Nine: Quit Foreign Legion. Pick up girls in Afghanistan.

Day Ten: Join Merchant Marines. Sail to Singapore. Teach fellow sailors to sing Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte.

Day Eleven: Chew gum in Singapore.

Day Twelve: Write a computer virus that randomly deletes electronic appointments in Microsoft Outlook. Send it to a half million people from a cyber café.

Day Thirteen: Go to Tibet. Become a Buddhist monk.

Day Fourteen: Lead Buddhist monk pals on trip to Zimbabwe to make bungee jump from the Victoria Falls Bridge. Introduce monks to the exotic taste of Jägermeister liquor, blended from 56 different spices.

I’ve only got a few more weeks to be completely stupid, so if you’ve got some suggestions for how I should spend my final immature days, please email them to me. Don’t expect a response, of course, since I will be diving for sunken treasure off the coast of Dubai with a harem of Swedish stewardesses.

And if I don’t get to accomplish all of my reckless dreams? I can always pick up where I left off — in another 22 years.