Thursday, May 6, 2010

In which I pass for one of THEM

My office is across the street from the hospital associated with Mediocre Institution. As it happens, my route to work takes me right past the maternity area. So my morning typically involves seeing numerous pregnant women waddling their way to the entrance for checkups or giving birth or whatever it is they do in there. (I also get to walk past my clinic. HI, CLINIC!) Most of the time this just starts my day off with a little low-level angst, though certainly not enough to make me take the long way around. That route is even less scenic, as it involves the hospital loading dock and what I suspect are the incinerators. I'd rather have pregnant ladies. So imagine me walking down a long, wide sidewalk with pregnant women comin' at me. Feel free to imagine them all pixilated, like an early version of Space Invaders. (Feel free to imagine me being super beautiful while you're at it.) On my recent trip to the office I was making my way down this sidewalk a bit slowly, perhaps with a slightly odd gait. And I was wearing a dress in the baby doll style, because it was comfy. Because my abdomen was swollen and distended.

So up waddles a pregnant woman.
She makes eye contact.
She looks at my belly.
She smiles a smile of camaraderie and shared joy at me.

I wonder if this is as close as I'll ever come to having that we're pregnant and it's so awesome experience.

I shoot her with my laser canon and reach an all time high score.

18 comments:

  1. Nice shootin', Tex! I know what you mean about getting a "shared joy" glace...

    It's very sad at times. I am sending you cheery thoughts that that will be you very soon!

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  2. Ooh! Good shot.

    I tut when I pass the Maternity Hospital of Doom. The enormo-bellied women are SMOKING outside.
    TUT TUT.

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  3. Do you get extra points if she is carrying multiples?

    Just to make it really uncomfortable but also kind of fun, I might have just looked at her, smiled and said "I'm fat, why are you staring at me?" (Which is not to say that you are fat, but that I think it would have shamed her into her place with the rest of her kind.)

    Seriously, though, I can't believe you have to walk by that daily. I'd go to work drunk.

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  4. One down. So damned many to go. I thought I had a bad daily walk: a few drunkards passed out in the gutter and a McDonald's on the corner. But yours wins. Hands down:)

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  5. i would've chased her down and said "i'm just fat. not pregnant. so TAKE BACK *that look*"!!! actually, no, i wouldn't have done that, but woulda just been pissed for the rest of the day instead.

    i have coworkers who blatantly stare at my stomach when we're having a conversation. "um, hello!! look up here b*tch!!". i *guess* in their defense, i did look massively preggers while i was on stims, but still ... do not a$$ume, you fertile b*tches. i think before ttc, i called 5% of the world b*tches. now, 45% of them are (meaning all women except for us).

    i'm waiting for someone to ask me to plan the work showers for the 2 pregnant chics. 2 ppl asked me last month when i was gonna send out an email. um, wtf should i do it?

    if you haven't noticed, i'm in a "f*ck everyone" kind of mood today, so pls excuse moi :o)

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  6. maybe she didn't think you were a fellow pregger but instead recognized you as a fellow holder of a VIKING RUNE CANDLE?

    it would explain her pregnancy, too, obvi.

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  7. OMG, this is my worst nightmare. Ahhhhhh! Frack that would tick me off.

    I feel like this on the verge of happening at work, b/c I'm not running and I keep wearing new empire-y tops and bigger pants (thanks infertilty!), and I'm sure my colleagues are looking at my pregnant-looking tum and thinking, she MUST be pregnant! Of course, I'm also 49% sure this is all in my head.

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  8. Yeah, I definitely look about 3-4 months pregnant in my empire waist tops now, which is the delightful side effect of grief eating. But since I'm with impoverished, romantically challenged grad students and 18 year olds all day, I don't think pregnancy is on anyone's mind.

    I'm trying really, really hard to think of an awesome comeback to that smug preggo's pregnant smuggery...but I can't. It just sucks.

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  9. I'm happy you shot her. ♥

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  10. Bunny, that is hilarious!!!! In an awful sort of way, of course, but I still smile. Personally, I very much doubt that you actually look pregnant. I am sure you look like a thin, beautiful woman in a baby-doll dress.

    But I can CERTAINLY imagine that some over-excited pregnant lady would assume that you were just in a very early stage of pregnancy, but (due to your own pregnancy-induced over-excitement) already wearing your maternity clothes. This isn't unheard of. I've had TWO people who I know who were each about 2 days pregnant lift their shirts to show me completely flat bellies, crying out, "Look, I'm showing!!!". One of them was even in a maternity top.

    So I am quite sure that you were implicated by your choice of dress and proximity to the maternity ward, rather than your physical form.

    It must've been a very interesting experience, though. I remember being a smug pregnant woman for all of 2 weeks. It was awesome! It really was. Yeah... I'll never have that again. Thanks Universe!! For robbing me of 8 1/2 months of smugness!!!!

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  11. Damn. You need to take the invisible jet from now on. I expect that you will need to reload the laser cannon and keep that sucker handy. It's way too much like a zombie movie where the aliens have infitrated that ward and are creating demon spawn!

    I imagine you beautiful with the worlds teeniest feet. :) seriously how does one manage to walk in size 7? :) On the S&P front, squishing bunny ears to produce salt is very satisfying (I'm talking grinders not real buns in case anyone starts calling PETA). No animals are harmed in the making of this message.

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  12. *grins* I used to work right next to the maternity dept. Was so hard to see them every morning all day. So glad that I moved my office.

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  13. Nice shooting. Well done.

    I do like the idea of Misfits and Bunny flying around in the Invisible Jet shooting smug pregnant women everywhere.

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  14. Thanks Bunny! I'm super stoked.
    Dr. Oxford is the FIRST person I told! Followed by my buddy at work, then E, then you guys, then everyone on fb, then my brother (because he happened to call). AND, not just first-author, but SINGLE author! Nice work, huh? Nobody (IRL, not you guys of course) announce a pregnancy to ruin my week!!!

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  15. Not YOU! You being pregnant would make my day x1000!

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  16. Yeesh. :(

    I think I would have gone with a flame-thrower as opposed to the laser cannon. More fire = more gratification.

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  17. UGH...I'd totally have an itchy trigger finger if that happened to me. The sad thing is that I've started avoiding those sorts of dresses and empire waisty things precisely because of that. And it's not helping that I tend to gain wait in my stomach instead of my butt or (I wish) boobs.

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  18. OK, so next time you have to remember: it's double points if you wait till the very last second to fire. And don't forget to pick up the power-ups after she hits the ground.

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