"I'm having a baby," Suzie Kokoshka said to her husband on that beautiful autumn afternoon walking through the front door. Her irresponsible husband, Oskar, dropped to his knees with a pickle jar in his hands, making the jar shatter on the kitchen floor. Pickle juice spread out all over the place. "Great job, Oskar, now you'll probably make ME clean it up!"

"You're always right, Suzie," he replied with a smirk and a chuckle. "And since you already have the keys in your hands, go to the grocery store and pick us up some more pickles! Dill this time, please!" The patient woman set down her bright pink purse on the dirty kitchen counter and shook her head.

"Don't pretend like you didn't hear what I said when I came in here, mister!" she yelled angrily, pulling a damp wash cloth out from the sink. Suzie got on her knees, too, and wiped everything off the floor.

"What did you say, sweetie?"

"Shut up, already!"

"What? You're so mean to me. I just wanted to know what you said."

"I'm pregnant!"

"Are you sure it's not the mail man..."

"Oskar!"

That night he slept alone on the sofa with his long legs hanging over the edge. When he awoke at dawn to start work as a paperboy, he found a note attached to the breakfast Suzie made him. It read:

I hope you know how much I love you, Oskar. But I am having a baby and this is not the time for you to be fooling around. I can't baby you if there's a newborn in the house. I think it's ridiculous that I have to clean up after you because you're too lazy to. It'd be very nice to have someone that took care of me around here... I'm leaving you for a couple of months, and then we can take it from there. Love, Suzie

P.S. I bought you a jar of pickles at the store this morning. It's in the fridge on the bottom shelf.

Tears formed in his eyes as he crumbled the piece of notebook paper up and threw it in the overflowing waste basket. I can't go to work today, he thought to himself. But he had to since he worked his butt off to get this job two years ago. Even if it was being a paperboy, it helped put food on the table and kept them from living on the street. He marched outside with pride and

got his bike at the front of the boarding house. Oskar hung the newspaper carrier over his shoulder and hopped on the bike. He pedaled threw the city, throwing papers at the houses depressingly, then once he was done, rode back home. He moped up to his living room and ate vanilla icecream out of the carton watching Spongebob all day.

That's when a knock on the door was heard. Thinking it was Suzie, Oskar hopped up quickly from his maroon colored chair and ran to the door. He opened the door with a wide grin spread across his face then saw Arnold standing there in front of him. "Oh, hey, Arnold," he greeted puzzled, drumming his fingers on the wooden door. "What are you doing here?"

Arnold was holding a baseball in his left hand and had a glove on on his right and replied thoughtfully, "Well, it's three in the afternoon, and I haven't heard from you or Suzie yet which is really strange. Me and the other boarders were starting to get really worried-"

"Suzie left me, Arnold!" Oskar wailed loudly, collapsing to the carpet floor. "I woke up this morning and found a note on my table saying she was leaving! Can you believe it, Arnold? Leaving!"

"Who would of ever imagined?" joked the boarder across the hall, Ernie Potts, who despised Oskar. "Never saw that one coming!"

"Shut up!"

"Mr. Kokoshka," Arnold replied sadly, "Get off the ground and we can talk all about why she left you, okay?"

Oskar nodded slowly and stood up shakily. The two of them took a walk through town as he explained everything to his young friend. He even showed him the note Suzie left him. "Do you think you're ready to be a father?" asked Arnold curiously while passing the town park.

"I don't know the least bit about taking care of babies! The only thing I know is that when they cry, they either want attention or want fed. Sort of like me. Ha ha ha!"

"You would have to make a lot of sacrifices, you know. Like occasionally you'd have to go shopping for groceries and save milk for the baby. And while the baby's sleeping, you can't be watching sitcoms."

"You're a pretty smart kid."