Hold on here. Let me take the nose off the record player – there we go. I love Eau Claire and all the things it has to offer. I love the bars, I love the people, and I love seeing the scooter-to-car ratio rise, but this week I have a much more urgent and pressing issue to talk about: babies.

Most male 23-year-old college grads 100 miles from any family do not think about babies. But I do. I think about babies almost every day. But not like that, you creep. Thinking about my own future procreations make me laugh nervously, itch all over, become sensitive to light, twitch a single eyelid, and cancel that Friday night date. Mom got in on this anxiety once, saying in all sincerity, “I was married at 22, had you at 23. Make no doubt about it son, it’s coming.” And Grandpa’s got a serious cash reward to the first grandchild who gives him his first great-grandchild. Um, you’ve got to be kidding.

Babies are great, don’t get me wrong, but they aren’t for me – not now at least: financial stability, things I want to do still, you know how it goes. Until recently babies have never been on my mind. Maybe I didn’t casually know enough parents. Baby ignorant and ill-informed, that was me.

I blame my nonstop baby thoughts on my coworkers. It’s their entire fault. When I took my first post-graduate job last April I had no idea the topic of parenting would follow me. At this place of employ, my coworkers work like most, but when they’re not working, you can bet your blue and pink booties it’s full-on baby hour.

It seemed like everyone has a baby. Most of my coworkers, the higher-ups, my position trainers, even my boss has a baby. Emails of employees’ new babies are sent every week. Everyone’s desk has pictures of babies. Some have pictures of other coworkers’ babies. Clearly, I was missing out on the fun. I thought about cutting out pictures of babies in magazines and framing them. And one time when I introduced myself to another coworker, the question that followed where I’m working and where I’m from was if I had any children. Holy crap.

The great majority of my coworkers are female, between their early thirties to fifties, they’re married and they have children. Given my profile, these baby-tastic conversations are certain to be very educational. Inescapable may be a better word. For lunch during one of the first weeks, I went to Cancun along with seven of these ladies. No problem! I love Mexican food. And as much as I’d like to, I could not contribute to any of the conversation. Babies. Babies. American Idol. Babies. It was all one homogenous mixture of topics I wasn’t really interested in, making for far more chips and salsa than words in my mouth. I listened, related as best I could, but in the middle of my pork burrito, attention came to me. Dry humor as my only ally, I gave my matter-of-fact contribution, “I was a baby once.”

A few months later I went to a coworker’s baby shower, my first, and in this obscene ritual, matched the taste of unmarked baby food to their flavors. It was a competitive guessing game. I didn’t win, and I’m still not sure if that was a normal baby shower party or not. I pity the highchair-strapped young ones forced to eat any meat-based baby food. Seriously, it was gross. The banana was all right.

But through my daily dosage of baby talk, these strange little people became familiar. I’m kept up to date with Kelley’s tribulations in potty training her little Aiden, I heard how Rebecca’s boy Mason broke his arm playing, and I heard how Sue’s daughter Elizabeth got engaged. And last August I bet against other coworkers on the time, date, weight, and length of Rebecca’s long-past-due baby. I didn’t win, but when pictures of baby Silas came in, I did a little ooh-ing and coo-ing. Then I met him.

This little thing in my arms, two weeks old, was the youngest person I’ve ever held. I had one of those revering moments when the curtains blow open, a tornado takes the house away, and I’m still standing there looking at his little eyes and occasionally kicking feet. I was a baby once? Like this guy?

So perceptions change. Ignorance is enlightened, babies are people too, and every office setting is probably like mine. But Mom and Grandpa are going to have to wait. Hearing about and then meeting my coworkers’ kids has been fun, and learning second-hand about child psychological development has been very educational. If you were wondering, I never did cut out pictures of babies from magazines. Instead I have trinkets and my favorite Volume One covers decorating my partition. And a few pictures of my girlfriend.