500

Just before lunch I finished my five-hundredth assessment of the year. It’s mundane, to say the least. Intake consists of identifying non-custodial and custodial parents and their alleged children. Eleven years ago, I was as naive as one could be about this seamy world of irresponsibility. For example, I thought that the father’s name was required on the birth certificate. That was the proverbial assumption I made on the basis of Rachel and Rebecca’s births. The child support enforcement in our country is mammoth and growing larger. Pitifully inept and inadequate sex education programs (or the complete lack thereof) are serving to pump out little bastards at increasingly alarming rates. The first case I worked this morning was for the seventh child allegedly sired by the same man with as many women (who says chivalry is dead? he at least had the courtesy to impregnate each woman only once). Some people feel that my progression from cop to preacher was a strange one, but I’ll tell you that was nothing compared to what I’ve been doing since I left the ministry. I must include myself among those who fear that the moral fabric of our society is fraying. How else do we explain the burgeoning illegitimate population in our country? Can anybody say “Palin”?