Umbilical Tetherball

an unconventional method of deciding whether your newborn will have an innie or outie belly b-tton. after the baby is delivered, the doctor asks the mother to stand up in the middle of the room. he gathers his nurses around the mother, and ‘serves’ the bay like a tennis ball.

it differs from conventional tetherball in that the object of the game is not for either team to wrap the ball around the pole (or in our case, the baby around the mother) a certain number of times in their respective direction, but rather to be the one with the hit that induces the breaking of the umbilical cord.

since the purpose of the game is to leave to form of the belly b-tton up to chance, the doctor does not cut the umbilical cord down shorter after it has broken, no matter how long it is.

our lawyers recommend not to play next to windows. while baby’s bones are made of cartilage, a high enough velocity can still shatter a window, causing hundreds of dollars in damage. health care in america is expensive enough as it is; having to pay extra for a delivery in order to compensate for the damages would be a tragedy for a family. (see also: obamacare.)
person 1: my parents had the doctors play umbilical tetherball with me.
person 2: oh, cool! -lifts up p1’s shirt- so, you’re an aquarius from 1994!
p1: it’s not as cool as it sounds. the game ended with an i.v. lodged in my frontal lobe.
p2: yeah. but at least you didn’t break any windows.
p1: i’m literally unable to wipe my own -ss.