I'm going to start calling the baby 'the third party'

The first time I wrote a column for my school newspaper in college, I could hardly sleep the night before it came out. I don't even remember what it was about; only that even after a few short years, I'm already sure it wasn't good. I'm quite confident about that; it's like reading a diary entry years later and realizing what a nitwit you were. Just ask what happened to my junior high diaries when I found them in college. Deeee-stroyed.

But I've never been quite so nervous as when this column was going to be published.

I'm a little superstitious about some things. That, and I have a couple people who write me about every two or three months just to tell me how much they'd prefer it if I dropped off the face of the earth. Please. Someone spit in their Cheerios in 1976 and they're STILL angry about it. I'm a logical target. I'm OK with that; it's just I don't want to hear it when there's a third party involved. As in my third party. Ah, well.