Origin Story - Chandler The Fool
Like most people with spring birthdays this year, I can’t help but feel like I missed out on a birthday celebration due to the Covid 19 outbreak and the subsequent self-isolation orders put in place. It’s already almost May and I’m still a little bummed that I haven’t been able to commune with friends and family. So as consolation I’m going to tell the story of my birthday as it was relayed to me. This is my origin story.
Before we get started, I acknowledge that I know too much about how I came to being, but in my defence it’s kind of a funny story. I’d even go as far to say that the events leading up to, and shortly after, my birth were so laden with irony, that my interest in comedy is more a result of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a casual interest.
I am an April Fool’s baby, born at 11:11 am on a Saturday, named after a sitcom character from a show that hadn’t even been on the air for a year. But even starting before that, I was predestined to not be taken seriously.
The year was 1994, Whoopi Goldberg was hosting the Oscars, O.J. Simpson was getting into car chases, Kurt Cobain was learning how not to hold a shotgun. A pair of newlyweds (my eventual parents) on a camping trip decided to throw caution to the wind and an egg was fertilized. The way I heard it, I wasn’t an accident but I also wasn’t really planned either. I came into this world more like a game of throwing cold cuts at a window, two kids were bored and wanted to see if anything would stick. They just happened to hit a bullseye and a zygote formed (that’s me). A few weeks later, the adventurous couple were gearing up for a trip to New Orleans for some Bourbon Street debauchery, when my mother felt something to be slightly amiss. Out of spontaneity and perhaps paranoia, a day before a raucous week of binge drinking, she thought, “I ought to take a pregnancy test, just in case,” only to discover she could no longer participate in the festivities. Before I was even an embryo, I was cockblocking and throwing party fouls. (She said she didn’t drink at all once she knew, but I also read and run pretty slowly, so...)
Skipping forward a bit, from what I know, I wasn’t too difficult as a fetus. No crazy mood swings (depending on who you ask), no bizzare cravings, mom was doing all the things a first time overachieving mother would do. She got her exercise, dad attended the mommy and me courses, they read books, on books, on books on parenting. I think they even included a few on dog training as they were on the same bookshelf; hence why I’m whistle trained and prefer to pee outside.
Due to being the first baby of the newest generation, there was a lot riding on my still forming shoulders. They went rounds trying out different names, but nothing seemed to really jump out. To help narrow down options, they knew that they wanted the name to start with a “C” in honor of my late grandmother Cindy. But for months they couldn’t agree on a name. That was until one night while watching a new NBC sitcom about a group of friends. It started with a “C”, it was relatively unique but not too in-your-face about it, they finally agreed, Chandler stuck. People ask me if my parents loved the show Friends because of my name and for the longest time I’d say, “no it’s an original name, the show copied me.” But the truth is, they didn’t name me Chandler because Matthew Perry played such an attractive and relatable character, it was more like, “why not Chandler, it fits the criteria.” Little did they know the show would last 10 seasons and everyone I’ve ever been introduced to would have to make their completely original Chandler Bing jokes. Who would have even guessed Netflix would bring a resurgence of ‘90s sitcoms back into the public eye; I got multiple generations of Friends viewers who think I’ve never heard of “Chanandler Bong.”
Then came D-Day, and boy was I in the shit; to be honest it was so traumatizing I don’t even remember it. One moment I’m chillin’ in the womb listening to baby Beethoven, the next I’m being evicted with no notice. Given that I was also the first of my generation, everyone involved was so green, they had no real idea of what to expect. They had their resource books and etc. but like war one can’t truly be prepared for that kind of situation until they’ve actually been through it. And even then, each circumstance has its novelty.
I should preface with my mom has an extremely high pain tolerance and is pretty stubborn when it comes to expressing discomfort. Because of that, I was almost a toilet baby. While Dad’s watching house hunters, Mom starts getting the tummy queezies and tries to alleviate herself in the bathroom. After a few minutes or so of nothing happening, they think, “hmm better check in with the OBGYN just to make sure everything is still cool.”
It’s a Saturday morning, my parents don’t have much going on, after a phone call with the doctor, they say why don’t you come in and we’ll do a checkup.”
Go figure, the parking lot is crowded, so being a stickler for a good spot my dad starts circling the lot a few times like a condor on cruise control. After finding the perfect spot; not too compact, far enough from other cars, and subsequently the front door, they head into the hospital super casual. Turns out Mom confused stomach troubles with legit contractions and had been in labor for the past few hours. The nurse takes one look at her and says she’s hella dilated; staff is now rushing to get a delivery room prepped.
But wait, it’s a beautiful spring morning which is apparently the optimal time to shoot out a baby, all the delivery rooms are all filled up. With no rooms to spare, they instead prepped a storage closet. The hope was that given labor time, frequency of contractions, how responsive my mom was, they had plenty of time for an actual delivery room to open up. Some women can spend hours, even up to day in labor. While some mother-to-be set up shop in their delivery rooms for hours on end, Mom got situated in the broom closet, cozied up to some tongue depressors and mop heads, and got down to business. Forty-five minutes later, yours truly came barreling down the birth canal with gusto. What a champ, cigars all around.
After a short rest, it was time to make the calls to let the family know that the new heir had been born, a real “circle of life” moment. She calls her father, who’s a bit of a prankster in his own right, saying “Guess what! You’re a grandpa!”
Of course, it being April fools day, he responds with, “yeah right, I knew you were going to call today. Stop fucking with me. LOL.”
-“No, for real. I had the baby, you’re a grandpa.”
-“Sure, yeah, you’re not going to get me.”
She needed proof, she couldn’t send a picture, camera phones weren’t around then. So the next best choice is audial evidence. Content and asleep, she pinched me to cause an eruption of newborn screams, followed by a wave of elation from my grandfather. On any other day, my shrill baby cry would just be another shriek, but that stupid conversation made mine a punchline.
I came into this world a bad joke, almost a toilet baby, almost a parking lot baby, luckily I held out long enough to be a supply closet baby. My conception was a well intentioned shot in the dark, my name has been both a burden and a prophecy of sarcasm and humor, my emergence into this world was a series of ironic mishaps that has led to a life of pursuing humor in its essence. I am Chandler, the Fool; first of my name, heir to House Phillips, what I do from here is a reflection of how I came to be and a reconciliation with who I want to be.
Happy birthday to all the other spring and summer babies that didn’t get to celebrate with loved ones this year.
