I DON'T USUALLY GET headaches, but here it is--blossoming in my skull like a blood flower. Not great timing. I'm going to the "A Child Becomes" preschool graduation at the Holy Rosary Church in West Seattle, so I need my wits about me. I buy some day-old sushi, in case it's a glandular thing.

Standing in the foyer gnawing a California roll, I listen to the joyous roar rolling out of the auditorium. I've tried to dress inconspicuously in black, but, glancing at the mothers in their bright floral sundresses and the fathers in Dockers, I suddenly feel like a pudgy, unwashed Carolyn Bessette Kennedy impersonator. Wiping wasabi off my face, I step hesitantly inside.

I find a folding chair in the back next to a pack of three-year-olds. "Nice tattoo," I say to a little boy in a Tigger T-shirt, gesturing to the dinosaur sticker on his tiny forearm. "What kind is it?" He glances down. "It's a stegosaurus," he states with absolute authority. Abruptly, he notices that his friend is pointing a pink, disposable camera at him. He snorts derisively. "James, that's a stupid Barbie camera." James looks down at the offending object with wounded confusion.

I leave them to the difficult task of creating gender identities and tour the room. Children's drawings are taped on every wall. "You sall not cut down trees." "Don't kill animals if you don't need them." "Don't make fun of other people's names." "If God is talking to you, don't eknore him." And the brilliant "Everybody should always shave." I guffaw out loud, drawing alarmed looks from several adults.

Suddenly, the strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" fill the air as a surging mass of four-year olds, draped in sashes with the year 2000 written in puffy fabric paint, appear in a strobing storm of photographic flashes and applause. They are overwhelmed, stumbling ecstatically up the aisle, waving royally to their confused siblings and beaming camcorder-wielding parents. Not that I was raised by wolves or a crack whore or anything, but I can't remember anybody ever making this big a fuss over me. My God, is it possible that I'm actually jealous of these adorable children?

Once herded onto the stage, Teacher Shelley, a toothy blonde with an acoustic guitar, leads them in song. My favorite is "Bill Grogan's Goat," about a man who lays on a railroad track to die and is then inexplicably saved by a goat who vomits up a red shawl, though the children seem more enthusiastic about Skiddimarinkidinkeedink .

Teacher Shelley steers us into serious territory. "I meditated to find the right things to say today," she says. She tells us that although there will always be cold pricklies, a front of warm fuzzies with occasional snack breaks is expected. Shouting over the increasing giggles of the wiggling graduates, she claims that the tiny students know more than just a few silly songs: "The children also raised $4.80 for the flood victims of Mozambique."

I'm riveted by a microscopic girl next to me wearing a tutu and glittery nail polish, who is digging delightedly at her itchy butt, but I snap back to attention when Teacher Shelley relates that "My rotator for the eggs broke down." Thank God I'm not the only childless woman in my 30s concerned about fertility issues in this room, I think, until I realize that she's talking about a machine in the classroom that hatched baby chicks.

When she winds up the speech, releasing the teeming horde onto two huge, decorated cakes, my headache seizes control of the command deck. I have no choice but to do its bidding; I ring up Bootsy on my cell phone. "What's that noise?" she asks. "That's the sound of 30 little four-year-olds dancing to 'N Sync. You still have that codeine from Canada?"

Six 222 tablets and half a bottle of red wine later, I'm flexible enough to consider Bootsy's suggestion to call all my old boyfriends and ask them to freeze their sperm, just in case. "But I pay for this sublet and I pay to keep my stuff in storage... do you think I'd pay monthly rent on DNA Popsicles too?" I ask with a thickened tongue. We both agree that more research is in order, as Bootsy gently covers me with a blanket at her house.

But before I plummet like a rock into the soft, black depths of sleepy time, I fuzzily send out a fond goodnight kiss to dear Casey, Campion, Cozette, Quincy, and zzzzzzzzzz....