The First Noelle

Much fanfare has been made (by me) about the miraculous birth of the extremely premature Anarchist. Admittedly, her birth and subsequent thriving-ness does make a pretty good story. But every year I realize that I have once again neglected the Dictator. Her birth was, by normal standards, unremarkable. But if she's going to take over a small Central American country someday, someone is going to have to write her biography, and that someone should be me. So without further ado, the otherwise neglected birth narrative of a Dictator:

Dictator Noelle

One early Christmas Eve morning, a young, beautiful, and totally pure virgin close-enough-to-a-virgin left her small apartment for her job managing a bagel shop. It was an unromantic job, and one for which she was clearly overqualified, being that she was also a genius. But she was a hard-working martyr with aspirations of graduate, or maybe divinity school. She was also heavily addicted to bagels.

The girl was childless, and as her no-skid shoes crunched  through the new-fallen snow, she congratulated herself for staving off her maternal urges, making the wise choice to put off childbearing until after she had earned her Ph.D. and could selflessly grace the world with her many gifts. Then, she assured herself, she could move into a quaint, craftsman style home in some nice college town, and set about being probably the best and most humble mother ever. And also a genius.

It wasn't until halfway through her arduous work shift, while scraping salmon cream cheese from the side of a broken toaster, that a startling thought occurred to the girl: the time of her uncleanness was nigh. (Shut up. It's a totally natural thing. I'm allowed to put it in the story.) In fact, the time had come and gone and--what, with her work feeding orphans watching HGTV in her pajamas--she had hardly noticed.

The girl took no breaks at work, because she was a martyr and such, but paused long enough to call her humble, hardworking husband on her gigantic cell phone to request that he run an important errand for her before the many church services they were to attend that night. (No. For real. Like, we went to three or something. It was insane.) 

And so it came to pass that the noble Bureaucrat marched purposefully to the Meijer checkout line and confidently purchased a snow shovel, cat litter, tampons (shut up), and a set of inexpensive pregnancy tests. "Rough day?" asked the cashier.

Upon her return to the modest apartment, the young, beautiful genius girl of humble purity fell upon her bed, exhausted, and certain that she was mistaken about the time of her uncleanness. She was just so pure and also so good at planning things and doing everything just the right way. It was all certain to be a silly mix-up.

But curiosity got the better of the girl and she made her way into the inner sanctum of the apartment. And lo, the angel of the pee-stick came to her and said, "Greetings, confused one! You may or may not be pregnant! This little blue smudgy plus-ish sign is really difficult to read! The Lord may or may not be with you this day!"  And so the girl tried again and again. And again it came to pass that the urine yielded no clearer sign. Panicked now, the girl called her sister, the Pretty One, and screamethed unto her, "HELP!"

And so it came to pass that the Pretty One, risking her own lily white reputation, made her way to the nearest Target and bought the priciest, most top-of-the-line, fancy, gold-embossed, ridiculous pee stick money can buy. And she brought it unto the girl. And the girl peed upon it.

And the angel of the fancy pee-stick came to her and said, "Greetings, terrified one. You are totally, unambiguously pregnant. Like, you are super, obviously, clearly with child. You should be totally terrified because you have no health insurance, no respectable career, no graduate degree, and no second room for the baby to sleep in. You are totally screwed. And now you will conceive in your womb (where else?), and bear a child, and you will name it Dictator Noelle. It will be the offspring of the most underemployed. The child shall reign over everyone who crosses its path forever, and its control over its environment will have no end."

And the girl said unto the fancy pee-stick, "How can this be, since I am not yet a Ph.D.?" And the girl also said all of the expletives.

The fancy pee-stick said to her, "Were you aware that the birth control pill is only, like 99.5% effective? Statistically speaking, someone's gonna get pregnant while on it, sister! What made you think you were somehow immune? For nothing is impossible with God."

And the girl said, "Here am I, the servant of my circumstances; let it be with me according to your blinking digital "PREGNANT" indicator."

In those hours, the girl set out and went with haste to pretty much all of the church services. And in every sanctuary, a picture of another more-perfect, more-beautiful, younger, and even-purer girl was displayed. And in every sermon, the terrified genius girl was reminded that the perfect/beautiful/young/even-purer girl had to give birth in a dirty cave, with no access to health insurance, child birth classes, or clean sheets. That even though she was giving birth to  the Son of the Most High, she probably had to squeeze rocks, or bite down on twigs, or something to deal with her birth pangs. And the genius girl cried out, "Woe unto me! For I am very, very screwed!"

And, financially speaking, the girl was correct. But little miracles abound, and the girl did not have to squeeze rocks and bite twigs alone in some cave. She got insurance, and a doctor, and a hospital with clean sheets and a nice nurse who gave her morphine (don't judge). And she gave birth to her firstborn daughter and wrapped her in a hospital blanket and named her Dictator Noelle, because the girl would never forget that fateful Christmas Eve when her life changed forever, and unto her was born the most beautiful, unexpected, terrifying, wonderful gift she could ever receive. Her beautiful Dictator. The one who made her a mommy.