Rise of the Bastards

PHOTO: Sarah G

Gather around, fellow adopted persons! We join to raise our collective profile. Too long has adoption been depicted as something people discover to their horror when rifling through their parents’ documents. Perhaps they find out when their first background check is performed. Whatever the case, being adopted is nothing of which to be ashamed. Nay! It is to be celebrated, like excellent eyesight or the ability to whistle loudly.

Consider this: most people plop wetly into the world and their care is assumed by their biological instigators, whereas we adopted persons, in many cases, must audition for parenting. I myself was alive for nearly four months before my parents took custody of me. I can’t remember much about how I spent that time. I assume “contsructively.”

Biological parents often fall pregnant by mistake, whereas adoptive parents gain children through thoughtful, concerted effort. There is quite a gulf between drunkenly forgetting certain measures and going through a months- or years-long application process. The days of finding a baby on the doorstep in a wicker basket and raising it as one’s own are long gone, due in part to the lack of baby sized baskets, but also due, I think, to the growing appreciation for adoption.

I propose, as our chief goal, the reclaiming of the word “bastard.” As you can see, I have had it bedazzled upon both my blazer and my briefcase. Thank you, Miss Beauregard, for the bedazzling. I didn’t think she’d be able to affix those things to my grandfather’s leather briefcase, but I was wrong. It is the only thing I have of his. But no matter. It is better now, and the word “bastard” must be reclaimed, as I say.

I recommend that we all pepper our speech with “bastard” as much as possible, using it interchangeably with many other common words. We will do this much in the way that Miss Beauregard tells me the French cartoon Smurfs used the word “smurf.” That was a bit of levity, there, I think.

Here are some example phrases with new bastards:

Surprise: “What the bastard?”
Query: “Which one of you beautiful bastards saved my wife from the weasels?”
Vow: “By the Great Bastard in the Sky, I will have your eyes as martini olives, John McGinty!”

You can see how easily this bastard slides into the vernacular. The word “bastard,” I mean, not that revolting shitneck McGinty. (I really do hate him.)

To sum this bastard up, I believe we are of a mind: adopted persons can and will join to gain wider acclaim. We will claw our word from the mouths of those of known provenance by using it in times of joy, in times of wonder, in times when we look into our black hearts and only one burning name stares back.

And if we wish to bedazzle that bastard onto a harris tweed coat or a leather family heirloom, we have only to look to Miss Beauregard.