Most respected medical professionals agree with my scientific assessment of babies*, which is that they're totally freaky. According to many new studies conducted by horrified new parents, however, it's becoming clear that babies are also totally disgusting.

(*I haven't actually researched this, but I'm certain it's true. Take a closer look at what your pediatrician is scribbling in that file folder during your next well-baby appointment. You think those are detailed notes about your child's developmental milestones or feeding habits or teething discomfort or whatever, but I'm convinced they're using their Viagra ballpoint to write "INFANT APPEARS TO HAVE NORMAL LEVELS OF FREAKY.")

I know what you're thinking: how can you refer to a tiny helpless baby as disgusting? Listen, I'm not passing judgment, I'm just stating a fact over here. You can cover your loin-fruit in all the adorable outfits and blankets you want, but there's no denying that your amazing baby is also amazingly gross.

I'm not talking about the pooping or spitting up they do, either. Yes, those are unpleasant bodily fluids and it's not very fun to mop a warm puddle of milkbarf out of your bra or dig in your baby's scrotal folds for that last remnant of feces like you're mining for unobtainium, but I'm referring to some of their many other unsavory habits.

For instance: neckcheese. Don't even try and tell me you don't know about the neckcheese, where your baby somehow stores a half-cup of milk in the folds of their own body and through a mysterious and complicated biological process, transforms it into a gloppy, yellowy, near-solid substance that smells like SATAN'S TAINT.

Or those crusty flakes they produce on their heads, which are like some sort of repulsive inbred back-country cousin to dandruff, which you have to scrub with that little plastic brush as if you're cleaning a chanterelle mushroom? Sure, "cradle cap" sounds sort of sweet, like a jaunty hand-knitted beret, but the reality is far less charming.

Don't even get me started on the toe lint. I'm not sure how a creature who can't even walk yet still manages to produce little boogery tufts of waxy foot-fabric in between their tiny corn-niblet toes, but I'll give you one piece of advice: never smell that stuff. Never.

Finally, there is the most atrocious babycare task of all, and that is the snot sucker. No, not the act of using it to shlork big wads of mucus from your baby's congested snout-hole (that part is strangely rewarding and anyone who claims they don't secretly enjoy it is full of lies), I'm talking about the part where you have to clean it. In the sink. By sucking up water and then ... oh god, I can barely type this ... ejecting the water and snot back out.

*pauses to enjoy a hearty round of gagging*

In conclusion, babies should probably be kept in sealed plastic containers and periodically sprayed with Febreze. Instead, we purposefully strap them to our own bodies and often clean them with our own saliva. Which just goes to show that they really are tiny, terrifying masterminds, brimming with strange mind-control powers—in addition to reeking, watery poopsplosions.