Maybe it was the gooey saliva and snot bubbling from every facial orifice. Maybe it was the way she precariously hung over her tiny mother’s shoulder. Or maybe it was the fact that she had less regard for social boundaries than a Risley resident, and had been staring at me, reaching at my face for the entire subway ride. Whatever the reason, I was not about to lose a staring contest to someone who had nil control over her bowels. This was a pride thing.

My nemesis was dangling by one leg now, her diaper crunching as she inched closer to me, held from a 5-foot death fall by her mother’s haphazard grip on her baby cankle. I wondered if I could — or even would — catch her in time.

But the pink, crunchy, curly, bubbling ankle biter answered my question when she unabashedly shouted, “Shrek!”

Okay, I was wearing a green hoodie, and my mascara was a few days old, and I may be even part giant. But Shrek? Sweet call, you underdeveloped oopma loompa. I hope you breast feed into your tweens. Oh, and by the way, Hannah Montana’s a whore.

This is not my first antagonistic encounter with the postnatal kind. I’ve been stared at, prodded, pulled, and drooled on more than a stripper in wedding season. I’ve been called everything from Sailor Moon to Ariel the Mermaid to Clifford the Big Red Dog, receiving no further reparations for my abuse than, “(S)he likes you.” I’ve considered carrying around a slobbering Great Dane to rub on the faces of these overly forgiving mothers. “Oh, look at that! Rufus likes you.”

This year, with the sudden surge of Baby Frenzy in the forms of Juno, Knocked Up, and the highest Hollywood pregnancy/Jolie-esque buy-a-baby rate since the ’50s, combined with my pending graduation and unwilling induction into the society of adulthood, I’ve had so many serious conversations about springing my off that I’ve cut a deal with my uterus. No babies. Less crowded for you, less noisy for me. It’s a win-win.

The whole process of birthing is terrifying. Well, maybe not the beginning. But after that, you’re stuck with this parasite in your belly that steals your food and energy for nine months, leaving you nothing but bloatedness and stretch marks in return. For at least three of those months you’re a beached whale until it punches its way out, slimy, screaming, and awkwardly naked — your own little bundle of alien to take home and feed for 18 years. I’ve decided the real miracle of birth is that husbands watch their wives demonstrate the elasticity of their hoo-ha, and still want to get down.

Since my lack of baby-game has become public, I’ve been dubbed unfit for motherhood by everyone from my teammates (“you’re more likely to shoot your child with a marshmallow gun than to breast feed”), to my dear old ma, who worries that I will hold unrealistic expectations for my spawn’s sense of humor: poor little Johnny wants so bad to be a brain surgeon, but his overbearing mother forces him to fulfill her old comedic aspirations. When she finds pages ripped from Modern Science hidden in his Mad Magazine, she interrupts his 14th hour study session of Best of SNL DVDs and forces him to watch the season finale of Mind of Mencia.

“I know it’s harsh, but this will teach you!”

“But Aunt Sarah’s a doctor!”

“Aunt Sarah’s a doctor because she had terrible control in her slapstick!”

It’s true; my future spawn will have to have a sense of humor in order to still love me after years of introducing the oldest as “the starter child,” the youngest as “the argument for birth control,” and all the in-betweeners as, “the ones I love slightly less than the rest.”

But come on, mom. You, too, abused your parental powers of apparent omniscience. I vaguely remember believing your story that there was a giant pink rabbit capable of evading home security to hide pastel plastic eggs in the nooks millions of homes over the span of one evening, until one fateful Easter I woke up to a dead bunny dangling from the mouth of a stork on my front lawn. I also remember crying like a champ while you dumped me next to the Easter Bunny Assassination and snapped some photo-ops. A year later, while rummaging for treasure-chest fillers, I was forced to either accept the reality that there wasn’t a little fairy who traded cash for teeth, or to come to terms with the fact that my mom had been collecting and stashing random baby teeth in her jewelry dresser for years.

After the creatures grow into knowledge-thirsty minipeople, I’ll have to feign competency in the social gatherings of professional moms. My mother once likened walking into a PTA meeting to stumbling into Dollywood, knowing only a few of her hit singles. Moms who read puberty books, only buy organic, and pack well-balanced lunches of salmon and veggies will point their lasers of parental mastery on my inadequacy. Even though I’m camouflaged in my highest waisted stone wash pants, v-neck sweater, and faux-artsy jewelry, they’ll still pounce like hungry antiquers at a rummage sale.

“Um, Shannan? Hi. I heard your little Jade … Jade, right?”

“Yes, named for the crayon.”

“Right. I heard Jade put Ryan Freeman in a headlock during recess.”

“Erroneous. First of all, I haven’t taught her that move yet. Second of all, it was a sexual assault prevention move. So maybe Ryan Freeman should keep his grubby little jam hands off my daughter’s goodies.”

Speaking of jam, there’s been a rumor that Broc… right?”

“Yes, after what I thought was the name of a Backstreet Boy.”

“Right. Broc’s only been bringing bags of pudding to lunch. We’re worried about his nutrition.”

“Erroneous again. Yes, I give him 15 pudding cups each morning for currency. But, he’s been trading them for organic apples, veggies, and most recently, Ryan Freeman’s salmon. He brings me home his leftovers.”

When I voice my maternal fears to the woman who raised such a well-adjusted lady as myself, she simply smiles this creepy, knowing grin and says, “One day, Shannan, one day … ” I assume this means that, like passive aggressiveness and menstruation, motherhood is a latent skill born in all women, waiting to be awoken by months of planning or a broken condom. Oh, magical day.

Shannan Scarselletta is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. To offer her a job, email sscarselletta@cornellsun.com. Awkward Turtle appears alternate Mondays.