The Name Game

It has been a series of conflict in the sitcom-in-the-making of "Prego and A's Magical Pregnant Journey" lately. I'm a firm believer in conflict -- I think it's necessary to make progress in anything, and in any honest relationship, it's just a natural presence. If you have a relationship without any conflict, someone isn't being honest. There's my relationship advice for the day, you can pay me by Paypal for it later.

We're in the final stretch here before The Spawn gets here -- only about 6 weeks left in this god-forsaken pregnancy. (I'm sorry. Pregnancy is a wonderful blessing and is the greatest thing ever... but good god DAMN my back and my feet hurt and I'm so tired of waking up multiple times in the night to pee or wake up to sharp pangs of intense pain because I have a tiny little foot lodged in my rib cage.) And we have no idea what to name her. Until about a week ago, her name was Sophia. But then MSN released the most popular names of 2007, and guess what was #1? Of course. Sophia. I was livid. Furious. This was a crazy pregnant meltdown on the same level of the ring shopping, KFC incident.

It shouldn't matter, right? I mean, this is me and A's kid and this kid is going to be unique regardless of her name. But still, I really don't want her to be one of five Sophia's in her class, forever be known as Sophia [Last Initial], and feel lost in a sea of Sophias. Naming people is HARD, kids. I don't particularly mind my name -- about 90% of the time I get it misspelled and/or mispronounced, and it takes a special breed of stupid to mispronounce my name. I just feel pressure from all edges of the family to name her after so-and-so, or use this name, or "That's really...different..." or whatever vague, passive-aggressive comments I field from my mother on any given week. It sucks.

It sucks more because I can tell he is very keen on changing the name. But he isn't the one carrying this little person inside of him. I have come to know and love this little kicking, punching, assaulting, rolling THING in me as "Sophie." To think of her by another name just totally alienates me from her. If that makes any sense. I don't expect it to make any sense to anyone except fellow Prego's or past Prego's. I just know her that way. It's like being told your best friend's name isn't really what you've always known it as. Sure, it's still the same person (probably), but they just become a bit of a stranger. I've spent eight months with this little person on a level that nobody else will ever know... and I've known her as Sophia (Sophie for short). To be honest, it's a little devastating.

He doesn't know I feel this way, nor does he understand. Like I said, I really wouldn't expect him to. I don't know... it just is all so final. This will be her name for the rest of her life. I don't want her to hate me/us, regardless of what we choose. I want her to have a fitting name that she likes. I don't know. I remember the torment of naming my dog and now I can't ever see him being known as anything BUT Bodhi. (BO-dee for those unfamiliar with him.) Maybe this is like that. I don't know. I am secretly hoping we decide to stick with Sophie.

Who knows. We'll see where hormonal Prego stands on it tomorrow. It changes daily.

There are intelligent, rational people...

... and then there are complete idiots that come into the restaurant I work at.

It really baffles me how normal, rational logic disappears when people come through those big double doors sometimes. Don't get me wrong -- we have a lot of customers ("guests" as I'm frequently reminded to refer to them as... whatever, we take their money, they're all customers and a payoff to my credit card bills to me) that are great people, really interesting, very intelligent... you know, NORMAL. But then, every once in a while, we get people that I am just amazed Darwin's Law hasn't sorted out yet. And for some reason they all at some point or another show up in my humble restaurant.

People think I'm being harsh. No, I'm not. I have seen just about everything and at this point in my young life I've lost most of my faith in humanity. I'm convinced that by being halfway functionally intelligent, I am a minority. To further prove my point, I will provide instances in which normal, intelligent thought has lost out to complete dumbassery:

SITUATION 1: DUMBASS PARENTING (part 1)
You Would Think...: "My child is restless and squirmy, and tends to scream for long periods of time. Perhaps she is too young to be in a sit-down, more adult-oriented restaurant."
But No, Instead...: "Let's go out to eat in a sit-down, more adult-oriented restaurant!"

SITUATION 2: DUMBASS PARENTING (part 2)
You Would Think...: "My child can't sit still in the booth and has been screaming for a long period of time. I should take her outside until she calms down, or maybe we should pack up our meal and go home."
But No, Instead...: "My child should not be confined to a booth! No, instead, she should crawl around on the floor, right around this corner here where there are tons of servers coming out with handfuls of plates of scalding hot food, trays full of drinks, and other things that may be potentially harmful if these servers were to trip over my child! Yes, this is an excellent play area!"

SITUATION 3: OFF-MENU ORDERING
You Would Think...: "The restaurant doesn't have exactly what I want. I should approach the menu with an open mind and order something printed on this menu, in my hands, that sounds delicious."
But No, Instead...: "I am going to demand something that is absolutely NOT on the menu, and there is no way the restaurant could even attempt to accommodate my ridiculous demands. So when the waitress kindly explains it's not possible, I will throw an all-out temper tantrum. Despite the fact I am a grown, 50-year-old man."

SITUATION 4: UNFAMILIAR WITH THE RESTAURANT?
You Would Think...: "It's a busy Friday night, and I bet the restaurant is very busy right now. I'm not entirely sure what kind of food is served, but maybe if I look for the restaurant menu online, or maybe I stop in on a slower day, I can learn a little more about the cuisine served."
But No, Instead...: "It's a busy Friday night. I'm going to call the overworked, stressed out hostesses right now and demand they read me the entire menu and explain each item in depth!"

SITUATION 5: SOCIALLY DEPRIVED
You Would Think...: "I'm lonely and bored. Maybe I'll call [Jim, Mabel, Jane, Dick, Ethel, etc....] and see how they are doing today."
But No, Instead... "I will call up that restaurant and ask one slightly tangentially related menu question, then chat up the hostess, who is trying to answer other ringing lines and seat guests at the restaurant! AND NEVER SHUT UP!"

SITUATION 6: CLOSING TIME
You Would Think...: "It is 9:55. The restaurant closes in five minutes. We should probably just hit up the drive-thru, as it would be very rude to come into an otherwise empty restaurant right now."
But No, Instead...: "Let's go in and have a three course meal! And stay and chat over coffee for an extra hour!"

SITUATION 7: SHE WORKS HARD FOR THE MONEY
You Would Think...: "Wow, our waitress is working really hard to make sure we have everything we need, and it's obvious she's very pregnant and still running her buns off. I'm sure she's tired. We would like another basket of bread, but can see she has three other tables right now. We've asked her, I'm sure it's coming as soon as she can get it."
But No, Instead...: "WHERE THE HELL IS MY BREAD??? This is absolutely unfair and rude and inconsiderate to us! Tell that knocked up bitch to hurry the hell up with our bread! We are going to die if it is not on our table in 10 seconds. BREEEEEAAAAADDDD!!! RAAAWWRRR!!!!"

SITUATION 8: DIRTY TABLE
You Would Think...: "There is a restaurant full of open tables, as it is not very busy. Let's pick a nice, clean table and enjoy a lovely meal."
But No, Instead...: "Oh look, I like this one, single, solitary dirty table right here. Clearly if it is dirty, it is because it is such a nice, popular table that everyone has sat here. I'm going to sit here and look very annoyed until someone notices me, then sit like a queen on her throne while the table is bussed in front of me. I like seeing the entire restaurant experience, down to the quick, NASCAR-style table bussing."

There's plenty more examples, but I have to work tonight and if I let my bitterness fester too much it's going to make for a very long shift. On top of that, it's Saturday, which is by and large the most popular day for our natural selection escapees. People wonder why my blog is so bitter and raging all the time.... this is why.

Thanks, Ribeye...

You must have passed the seventh grade in order to understand my rage.

Merry F*&$#ing Christmas

Christmas shopping is not a concept that considers 8-month-pregnant women.

First -- I border on agoraphobic (fear of crowds) and hate being out in public in crowds more than I have to be... which I think either springs from, or is fueled by, my hatred of being touched. I don't like bumping into people, I don't like brushing against people, etc. It's not like a rabid hatred or anything, I'm just a person who enjoys her personal space, a lot. So take Christmas shopping into account, where everyone in this god-forsaken city is all in one place, plus the fact that I take up more square footage than an orca whale, and I get touched/bumped into/brushed against. A lot. I really don't blame my unborn daughter for kicking the shit out of me. After all, I'm causing her house to be slammed into on a regular basis. I'd be pretty pissed too.

Which yes, put crowds and Prego in one small space and I'm already irritated, PLUS getting kicked by my child AND having Braxton-Hicks contractions. I can only compare these to, imagine, if you will, walking around with your abs flexed and clenched as absolutely hard as you can. And not just a small flex and release. Flex and hold. For like five minutes. Wait an hour or so, and do it again for another five minutes. Yeah, it hurts, it makes you tired, and it kinda makes you pukey. And I'm stuck in the damn Gap or wherever around all these strangers who for one reason or another are just PISSING ME OFF... it's a bad, bad, volatile situation.

Speaking of people who piss me off -- old. Fucking. Ladies. You're old, I get it. Your time is getting closer by the second. And you're trying to shop for your grandkids, or nieces and nephews, or your 60 cats. I get that. But that does NOT mean you get to cut in line. Don't pretend you don't see it. The end of the line is back there. I know because I was back there about 15 minutes ago, and see, I'm still here. Don't you go up to that cash register like you don't see the 30 people in line waiting. And definitely don't try to squeeze in front of me. You're old? Fuck you, I'm pregnant -- very pregnant. I win. I will block you off with my unborn child. You can get behind me. Chinese cutsies. Learn it, hag, because it's the best deal you're gonna get.

Parking is another concept that does not consider the disgustingly-overinflated pregnant woman, especially Christmas parking. I see all these people getting in and out of vans in the handicap spots and think they get to park five feet from the door just because their legs don't work. That's crap. My feet are huge and swollen and maybe, MAYBE I'll be able to get my shoes off at the end of the day (my shoes that took me five minutes of grunting and struggling just to get ON). My legs are swollen and hurt just from my six hour shift of running my ass off at work. My back? We won't even go there. And I'm carrying this gigantic beach ball full of cement out in front of me, on ice, trying not to slip. Fuck you, handicap person, so you probably had your legs violently torn off in a war, or you were born without ever getting to know the joys of running through a field of daisies or something. It's sad and I'm sorry, but you know what, you can sit comfortably in your motorized Hovaround and park out in Bookooland. I have to walk. I think I deserve a handicap spot. You might think I'm being callous or insensitive, but the hormones give me an amazing sense of entitlement.

And traffic. Oh traffic. We know about my unhinged rage I have when I'm behind the wheel of a car, but put me in busy Christmas shopping traffic and I swear to you, I am amazed I have not gone into labor yet. Yesterday the traffic light in front of the mall went out, with no police officers to be found directing traffic. Common sense would dictate the need for operating like a four-way stop. Easy enough concept, right? WRONG. You would swear that society had collapsed and automobile anarchy was in effect. It was horrible. And by now, for the reasons I've listed and so many more, my patience is shot. You balk for one split second at a red light? Oh, I am honking my horn and I am furious. GO, ASSHOLE!!! And turn signals! Why is it NOBODY in the state of Indiana is capable of flicking the little switch and utilizing these things? TURN. FUCKING. SIGNALS!!!! I can feel my blood pressure elevating as I write this. I hate driving with other people on the road. I think it's probably a problem I'm going to have to overcome, but in the meantime... damn ya'll, damn.

I should really stop writing this before I send myself into labor. But if you're out shopping within these last few pre-Christmas shopping days, and see a pregnant woman, steer clear. You may think she looks jolly, but we're filled with a rage like you have never known. Approach at your own risk.

Newsflash: Spawn a celebrity, neglect responsibility, become a martyr!

Okay. I'm just going to warn everyone now. If you're going to read this blog and then get all pissy and offended and tell me I'm insensitive, move along. It's nothing I haven't heard before, so don't waste your time.

That being said, DAMN I am tired of hearing about Kanye West's mother and her death as a result (allegedly) of botched plastic surgery. It's everywhere. It's on Dr. Phil right now as I speak. It's on TMZ and Perez Hilton and my mother even talks about it. MY MOTHER. That is when you know it's permeated the media in a profound way -- my mom actually knows about it. I'm frankly tired of hearing about it.

But Prego, you might be thinking, that's wrong! That poor woman died! Her son is crushed! This is very very sad and blah blah blah!

Yeah, okay. She died. That's unfortunate. She seemed like a great woman when I saw her on TV, and she was a beloved mother, friend, aunt, whatever. She could have cured cancer and rescued millions of kittens from a meteor. Great woman, very sad tragedy. I get it. But what I don't get is why nobody in the media is putting ANY sort of responsibility on Ms. West herself.

So the doctor she went to has had a history of medical malpractice and alcohol problems. Yep, pretty darn shady. So he's got all these cases of women scarred, deformed and "ruined" from his procedures, his interpersonal skills suck, and maybe he likes to fart in the car with the windows up and the heat on. He's a bad man. Okay. So why, WHY would Ms. West go to such a doctor without consulting... oh, I don't know, his medical history? Wouldn't it be wise to look into the person that's going to be, you know, SLICING YOU UP? I don't even trust the girl in the McDonald's drive-thru handing me my double cheeseburger, let alone a doctor that is going to be taking a knife to my flesh. You research shit like that. It's what grown-ups do.

Furthermore, before going to Dr. Shady, Ms. West had been advised by, ya know, GOOD doctors not to go through with the surgery because of cardiac issues. Should've been a red flag to probably not have surgery. But no, she was so driven by her own vanity and selfishness that she HAD to have the surgery done RIGHT NOW, regardless of who was doing said surgery. And instead of going to a responsible medical professional, she went to this guy, who obviously had no problem operating on a woman whom other doctors did not feel comfortable performing surgery on.

And now she's dead.

Like I said, it's sad. It's unfortunate and tragic whenever anyone dies, regardless of the reason, because it's tragic to someone. I'm not sitting here mocking Kanye West for losing his mom. I'm not mocking anything, actually. I'm just being the voice of reason here -- she made a choice to go to a doctor, without researching his medical history (or maybe with it, and still chose to go forward), and then died as a result of shoddy plastic surgery. PLASTIC SURGERY -- an elective surgery that nobody was putting a gun to her head to have done.

But you know... if you can spawn a celebrity out of your crotch that actually likes you, rather than suing you for bad management and money embezzling or whatever... you don't need to be held accountable for your decisions, even if they might result in you dying.

That being said.... flame on.

Supermoms break rules too.

It has amused me for quite some time now that my blog is featured on a blogring of pregnant and expecting blogs... namely because when I've visited other blogs from this ring, I realize that I am NOTHING like these women with the exception that I have a fetus in my uterus. Yeah, sure, you have your general pregnancy stories -- the baby kicks my ribs, thinks my bladder rocks as a pillow, I'm a fat orca whale, this child is eating my soul, etc. etc. -- but then you get to the very root of it. I'm so not a pregnancy role model.

I tried to be. When I first got pregnant, I delved into all the web sites telling me what not to eat (hot dogs, soft cheeses, deli meat, sushi, fish in general, peoples' heads, etc.) and diligently abided these rules, along with all the other stuff I had to give up, including alcohol, smoking, marijuana (whatever, don't look at me like you haven't smoked your share, too), caffeine and over-the-counter painkillers with the exception of Tylenol. Which, by the way, if you are a fellow sufferer of chronic migraines like myself (yay for genetics!), I'm sure you'll join me in a hearty FUCK THAT for anyone who thinks Tylenol will curb a migraine. It doesn't. It doesn't do shit. I want my Vicodin, I want my Imitrex, and I want it NOW. But because I don't want my child to come out looking like Vishnu with six arms and three heads, I had to give it up and suck it up when migraines came around. (Which they did, frequently and with a vengeance when I gave up caffeine.)

Anywho. Eight months in, I've pretty much quit being Supermom. My sister-in-law was one of those who basically abstained from any kind of vice and any kind of potentially hazardous food, as I am frequently reminded by my mother-in-law, who advocates it and looked like I killed a kitten when I ordered a Coke -- a REGULAR COKE, OMG!!!11! -- the last time A and I went out to eat with them. You know what, fuck it. (Yeah, I'm going to be a mom and I say fuck sometimes. Or a lot of the time. What-the-fuck-ever.) I'm tired of following rules. And so I've hit the caffeine with a vengeance, stand in front of microwaves, eat fish, LOVE goat cheese on croutons at work, and you know what? According to every ultrasound and heart check to date, this baby is 100% healthy. Totally fine. Fuck you, Google and WebMD.

I'm still a good mom, as good a mom as you can be to a fetus. I mean, I let her have marshmallows whenever she wants. And key lime pie. And chocolate. A lot of chocolate. Whatever, the baby makes me eat it, I swear.

But yeah, my original point? I forgot it a while ago. Oh. Yeah. For anyone stumbling across this page from the Perfect Pregnant Woman blogs, or from Google blog searches for pregnant role models... continue your search, it ain't me. I'm just a kid livin' a dream... and downing a LOT of sugar and caffeine in the meantime. Go eat veggies or something -- there, there's my public service announcement for the day.

The Prego has spoken.

Santa Claus is the devil.

I'm married to Santa Claus. Did you know this? No really, I am. For the children of my mother-in-law's daycare, my husband, A, really IS Santa Claus. As he gears up for his yearly jaunt with strangers' children on his lap, it brings back memories of my own encounters with Santa at the Ames store my mom took us to every year.

I never trusted Santa. I was never a fan of excess celebrations, or the notion of grown adults in costumes. Santa always made me uneasy, but not quite so much as the Easter Bunny, who did not talk, and whom I was more than aware was an adult in a furry costume. I felt the same mistrust toward Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and company when I went to Disneyworld. Probably why today the notion of furries is so disturbing to me.

But anyway, years later as an adult myself, it's nice to know that I wasn't the only one ill at ease with Santa. With that, I now present the best that Google image searching has to offer...

Yeah, so from my family to yours... merry Christmas.

Road rage

I've discussed it before, but to reiterate to anyone not familiar with my driving style -- I drive for shit. I can openly admit it -- I'm a horrible driver. I weave through lanes. I'm regularly driving 20+ mph over the speed limit, I obliviously cut people off, I roll through stop signs. If I'm feeling especially saucy on any given day, I might, might use my turn signals. I'm that car on the road that when I pass a driver's ed car, I can count on looking in my rearview mirror and seeing the instructor in the passenger seat pointing at my car and telling his student that I'm an example of what NOT to do. I know. I'm a horrible, horrible driver. I'm amazed they let me on the road, too.

HOWEVER... I am convinced that I am the only person in this entire city that has even the remotest idea of how to drive in the winter. I grew up about 45 minutes away from the city in which I currently reside, where the weather patterns are assumably similar. That is, every December, it snows. It's winter. This white, frozen precipitation falls from the sky onto the earth. It's the damnedest thing, because you'd swear every single resident of this city is completely new to the concept of snow. At least the ones in cars. Because every December, without fail, once it snows, everyone in this god-forsaken city begins to drive 20 miles per hour, regardless of where they are -- side roads, main streets, mother-effing interstates... A few small flurries are cause for alarm here. By "alarm" I mean MASS PANIC AND HYSTERIA.

We had our first major snow here last week and there were over 90 accidents that night reported. You want me to venture a guess? Because everyone was freaking out and driving 10 mph. I am that asshole that drives maybe 5 miles under the posted speed limit, passing said idiots. Because it's the damnedest thing in the world -- tires are actually created with traction to handle snowy roads. Oh yeah, AND THE ROADS WERE PLOWED THREE DAYS AGO!!!

I am swearing to you right here and now, folks, I'm going to go into labor while I'm driving because my blood pressure and my patience are inversely related when it comes to the dumbasses behind the wheel in this city. I come from a small rural town where maybe, just MAYBE the roads would get plowed after a snowstorm. Huge maybe. You learned to drive in winter quick and after you hit a ditch once or twice, you learned the limits (I only did it once, thank you very much). Maybe I'm lucky because I'm not a complete fucktard when it comes to winter driving...

...or maybe it's a curse because I'm stuck behind fucktards that think "Snow = Driving 5 mph."

Gah... I need to get out of this city.

MIA... sorry...

Yeah, I'm not exactly the most "regular" blogger in the blogosphere to begin with, but even I am disappointed in my recent disappearance from the blogger dashboard. Sorry kids. I have a few things in "drafts" that I get about halfway through and decide, "You know what? This sucks, and it isn't funny," and then move on to do more important things, like bitch over at Bitter Waitress and fill out MySpace surveys. I'm sorry. I suck.

I'll start up again soon, pending I live through Christmas. Christmas always stresses me out, most likely because I've never really been filled with Christmas joy to begin with. So faking it is one thing, but faking it despite the usual holiday stresses is even harder, especially when you're a hormonal, emotional train wreck like me lately. I'm still in the middle of trying to finish up the baby's room -- we've got that painted and now it's a matter of setting everything up. I'll post pictures once it's finished, but in the meantime my goal was to have it finished before Christmas. I don't see that happening anymore, but at least we have finished painting the room and clearing out the majority of the random crap sitting in there (it's been the second bedroom/crap storage room for years). It's just a matter of getting everything set up, but seeing as a lot of the furniture probably won't happen until Christmas as gifts, there's just bags and baskets and boxes of things just hanging out in there.

I pray to Vishnu and whatever pagan gods that this kid is not early, because I have the feeling we're going to be cutting it close as far as finishing up the nursery.

Other than that, it's just a whirlwind of shopping for Christmas presents and working my ass off to afford said presents and still pay off the bills I've got hanging over my head. The whole "grown-up" thing is overrated. I have not begun shopping yet, but at this rate it's a matter of actually getting a day off work and having money in the bank account to do it. Not such an easy combination. Like I said... the grown-up thing? Totally overrated.

So, that being said, sorry I haven't been around lately... but trust me, all of the aforementioned experiences are making me extra bitter and cranky, so expect me to be back in a big way once I get around to it!

I'm pretty sure this was an accident.

No, the title is not referring to my pregnancy.


Seriously, I think it's official to say that I'm an adult. I don't know when this kicked in, or why, or how, but I think it officially hit me when I was walking through Wal-Mart with a cart. If you know me, or have ever gone Wal-Mart shopping with me, you'll know I am not a cart shopper. I do not stay in Wal-Mart longer than I need to, and damned if those carts don't impede upon my ability to quickly maneuver through the catacombs of the Land of Wal as quickly and skillfully as possible. I don't care if I'm buying five bags of salt for the water softener. I'll carry those sumbitches through the store like Forrest Gump in Vietnam.

But no, instead I found myself going through the pharmacy aisle of Wal-Mart (past the pregnancy tests...hey guys, remember me?) and looking down my shopping list -- yes a LIST, a LIST of things we needed to get -- strategically mapping my next move. Hardware for light bulbs then housewares to check out frames and then the back of grocery to get pop... yes, that'll work out nicely...

AND I HAD A CART. I looked like a grown-up. I was wearing my grown-up Express pants (yes, I'm still fighting the maternity clothes battle and wearing my pre-prego pants, thank God that I'm carrying Sophia high enough I can swing that) and my official looking high heels and the pregnant bump that says "Look at me, I have functional reproductive organs and I have big girl sex to utilize them!" And a list of things like light bulbs and vitamins and groceries, instead of the usual "Beer. Oreos. More makeup." Yeah. I think I am a grown-up now.

Apparently paying my own bills, getting married, and having a child weren't enough for me, but walking around Wal-Mart is the tipping point of adulthood. That Britney Spears pre-crazy song about "Not a girl, not yet a woman"? Yeah, clearly homegirl was still just going to Wal-Mart and maybe getting one of those hand baskets or something.

So take note. Somewhere in between those six easy steps, you can make mental note of "Walk around Wal-Mart with a cart." I don't know where it goes. I'll let you decide.

What I'm Thankful For...

Her.

I get by with a little help from MySpace

Sometimes I get down on myself. It happens. Life's stressful, I look like an orca whale, I can't drink alcohol, and sometimes I poop a lot. And when life gets me down, I used to partake in an activity I call Scuttlebug Hunting -- going to Wal-Mart at 3 a.m. and checking out the scuttlebugs of society. Remember when you were a kid and would move a big rock or concrete brick, and there'd be all these weird bugs that would run around from day light?

Yeah, those people. They live in the Wal-Mart, I think, and come out around midnight. Seeing them, no matter how bad life seems at that given point in time, makes me feel a little bit better. That, and sometimes you just need to go to Wal-Mart and buy some useless, cheaply made Chinese plastic doodads to feel better about life. I have like eight Kool-Aid pitchers I'll probably never use and a failed sea monkey farm as a result of these trips.

Thankfully the Internet has cut down on my need to look down on others in the Wal-Mart to feel better about myself. Thanks to the social wonder of MySpace, the societal scuttlebugs now come to me! And boy do they in droves. It fascinates me that these people actually publish themselves on MySpace, or the Internet at large, when it's so easy to just throw up a picture of Heidi Klum and make yourself into a swimsuit model with about as much effort as it takes to make a profile about your real self.

Go ahead and look at me like a bad person for making fun of these people, but you know what, it's funny, and if these people are stupid enough to put crap like this up on a public forum, then they deserve to be made fun of and used for the sake of my own sadistic self-esteem issues....

First, we've got ladies like this little flower here...


Okay, no amount of bleach to my eyes will burn this image out of them. It's haunting. Worse yet, Seductress here has a SERIES of photos like this. This is about the only one that doesn't make me physically ill, just mildly nauseous. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this picture is the fact that she captioned it, "Peanut and I were playing with my camera..." and a few pictures prior labeled aforementioned "Peanut" as one of her children,probably about six years old. Yes, she decided to play Orca Whale Porno Time with her CHILD and a digital camera. When I become so lonely that I need my grade-school-aged child to take seductive photos of me, I expect to be dismembered and then flogged to death with my own limbs and raped by a goat... seriously, someone take note of this, because I vow to never reach that point in my life.

Then ya get people like this guy, who incidentally I went to high school with...


In his profile, he so eloquently describes himself as a "fucking POTHEAD AND A JUGGALO FOR FUCKING LIFE. FUCK MAINSTREAM BRAINWASHED SPIT BACKUP BULLSHIT." Thanks for that little bit of insight. It's even more poignant when you CAPITALIZE RANDOM PARTS OF THE SENTENCE. Also, he's a "juggalo," which for those who don't know, means he's a pothead pseudo-fan follower of the band Insane Clown Posse. His entire layout is dedicated to this band. Wow, Mike, you're SUPER COOL because you like clowns. Something people normally aren't fond of. You are so WEIRD AND UNIQUE because FUCK MAINSTREAM BRAINWASHED SPIT BACKUP BULLSHIT. Pretty sure a hyphen should be in there, but when you've got good bud and clowns around, who really needs correct grammar?

Furthermore, who needs grammar when you can have love? I present to you Mike's girlfriend...



Okay, note to the world: I don't care who you are. I don't care how attractive you are. I don't care how much you paid for them, or how good you think they make you look. GLAMOUR SHOTS ARE NEVER, NEVER, EVER A GOOD THING. Glamour Shots alone are fodder to be made fun of. Seriously. If you take Angelina Jolie, a woman that I would undeniably go gay for, tease her hair to obnoxious heights, spray paint the rejects of last season's Mary Kay line, and put some leather jacket on her, she too will look like white trash. Glamour Shots are the devil. But this treasure here is, I'm pretty sure, already white trash, so now she's just apparently half-wearing a random leather jacket and we'll call it portraiture at its finest.

And somehow in the midst of all of this, I stumbled across a lovely woman who has no problem proclaiming she loves the Lord...


... because if I could only show you -- Jesus vomited all over her page in a mess of animated GIFs and doves and crosses. You like Jesus. That's super duper. Praise the Lord. But I think even the good Lord Christ would be embarrassed by the eye-gouging display of animated, blinking graphics that you use to praise Him. Praise the Lord in song. Praise the Lord in good deeds toward others. Do not praise Jesus with bad web design.

(Hold on... still having an epileptic seizure from this crazy lady's page...)

The thing with the crazies is that they love them they's kins... this woman's page led me to her daughter's page... which is a whole new level of "Holy shit"...


Umm there's a lot just in this picture that I could write an entire megabyte in blogspace on. Easily. But instead, we'll just take a look at her "about me": "I am proud to say that I am a virgin and am planning on it till my wedding night! True Love will wait!" True love will probably also ask you to wear a paper bag on your head, lights turned off at 3 a.m. and have a few good strong shots of Jack Daniels first. Chastity and virginity are great virtues, and I can respect people waiting til marriage to have sex (after all, so you don't wind up like me with the cart before the horse... whatever, I got married to him eventually)... but really... I think genetics are giving her a big helping hand with her endeavors.

I'm agnostic (bordering and teetering on atheist), but looking at MySpace pages like these really makes me think all those crazy Christians claiming the world's about to end because the world's rife with folks like this. But maybe we all have our own special purpose in life -- to share knowledge with others, to love, to be loved, to learn from lessons life lays out for us, who knows. All I know is these people serve a great purpose for giving me something to make fun of for half an hour on my blog.

Tell Hell I'm well on my way.

The Ballad of the Hot Drunken Mess at Bar Seat 2

Hot Drunken Mess: "Are you pregnant?"
Me: "Yes.....?"
Hot Drunken Mess: "Well then you're a bitch and I fucking hate you!"

This is just the beginning of my fun tale with this fine, classy broad earlier this week.

Early in the evening, we get two ladies -- we later figure out that they're mother and daughter -- sitting at the bar. Obviously a little drunk, maybe buzzed, but they start out with a martini apiece. Then more martinis. Time passes, and soon the daughter of the duo, or Hot Drunken Mess -- HDM, if you will -- is sobbing uncontrollably. I mean homegirl is inconsolable. The bartender, from her eavesdropping skills (and later utilizing her gossiping skills with me), figures out that HDM has either had an abortion and is regretting her decision, or had a miscarriage.

Either way, a fetus was involved, but is no longer involved, and now HDM is very sad about it. A sad situation, to be sure, but sitting at a bar (the bar in a pretty upscale Italian restaurant, no less) drunk as shit with your mother is not the place to grieve. To quote Bar Bitch over at Bitter Waitress, " My mom and I usually go to the Waffle House after I get an abortion."

By this point HDM has spotted me -- an innocent bystander by all means, just your friendly dining room server with an all-too-telling bump in the gut. From where she is sitting at the bar, she has full view of the drink station (the only drink station in the restaurant). There is absolutely no way I can avoid HDM as I'm going to and from getting drinks for my tables. I can feel her staring daggers at me as I'm coming and going and finally our little confrontation -- after three martinis' worth of built up courage -- took place.

After that, every time I walked by, she would call me a bitch or a cunt under her breath, apparently very bitter that I was pregnant with a live, living, and continually living fetus, and seemed pretty damn content with myself. (Little did HDM realize I die a little bit inside knowing that I graduated at the top of my college class and yet my only source of income right now is dealing with stupid bitches like her and hoping they are too drunk to scribble anything less than a 20% tip on the credit card slip at the end of the night.)

Not long after she crossed the point of no return -- and between sessions of inconsolable sobbing -- HDM tried to go to the restroom, only to get very lost and wind up in one of our banquet rooms, which was not in use tonight but had dried flowers and other Christmas decorations laid out, ready to be put up in the morning. So she helped herself to making a bouquet, and then proceeded to parade around the restaurant, slurring, stumbling, and yelling obscenities at anyone who gave her a remotely shady eye (because after all, she was ridiculously drunk, and making just a teensy bit of a spectacle of herself).

At this point the manager tried to get her to come sit down again and feed her and pour some coffee down her gaping food hole. She responded to this by trying to kiss him. She was still sitting at the bar with her shining example of a role model of a mother when I left...


Yeah... yeah. Nights like this I go home, stare at my college diploma and cry.

New Creepy Cat Guy Sightings...

... in case you were curious:

Most recently spotted creeping around his house, following a cat, while talking to the cat. Not just "Heerrree Kitty Kitty" (that would imply that he's actually doing something to corral his cats)... no, just having a casual conversations with the disinterested cat as it slinked around the perimeters of his house/yard.

I really don't know what this guy's tripping on... whatever it is, as soon as I get this kid out of me, I want some.

(No clue what I'm talking about? Go hereand get in the loop.)

He's adjusting.

While A and I were in Vegas getting hitched, I left my dog, Bo, a 2-year-old papillon, with my mother. She has a dog of similar size and age, and they play splendidly (Bo and her dog, that is). I figured it'd be like sleepaway camp for him for a few days of fun with new friends. I thought he'd enjoy having a big backyard to run through without being attached to a cable like he is here. While there, I knew my mom would go against my orders that he sleep in his kennel at night, so I thought he'd have fun getting to snuggle under the covers with warm legs and feet at night.

These are things I expected. I did not expect my mother to ordain herself the ambassador for Canine Mental Health.

Apparently, in order to prepare Bo for the arrival of his "skin sister" in February, my mother bought him his very own baby doll. Bear in mind, this is the tactic my parents used with me when pregnant with my younger brother. But I'm also, you know, A HUMAN. But anyway, when A and I came to pick Bo up after arriving home from Vegas, you can imagine our surprise to be sent home with a stuffed baby doll that he absolutely refuses to be separated from.

Yes, Bo loves his Baby. It's almost as big as he is, and yet he drags it everywhere with him... by its crotch. (He loves to grab the crotches on his toys. I don't get it. Psychological issues from the fact that I neutered him, perhaps?) So as he drags Baby around the house with him, it gets caught up underneath him, so while strutting through the house he wants up walking all jenky-like trying to walk while stepping over Baby as he carries it.

Baby serves a number of purposes. As with all his toys he loves, he beats the shit out of it. Loves, LOVE to shake it. And fetch. He never tires of bringing Baby to you and letting you throw it, which, as A has expressed, "has amazing flying distance" thanks to the heavy head. I am wondering if I should be concerned that my dog and the father of my child enjoy playing "throw the baby across the room" together.

Also, Bo has decided Baby does not need clothes (he's stripped its clothes off and used them for a whole new set of toys), nor does Baby need hands (they're sitting on the end table as I found him chewing on them after ripping them from Baby's limbs.)

There are so many psychological issues at play here, and I can't even begin to tackle them all. So I'm just presenting the case as it is, for you to contemplate for yourself.

Why yes, I am superwoman.

Despite having a very expensive bachelor's degree in journalism hanging on the wall (and taking an automatic payment out of my bank account on the 3rd of every month), I still have not been able to find a job doing what I love to do, and at the same time making more than I currently am as a waitress. Fuck you, Alcoholic High School Guidance Counselor, for leading me to believe that print journalism was a wise and noble career choice. Looking back, I think he just told me what I wanted to hear to get me out of the office so a certain classmate of mine, his "teacher's aid", could come in and suck his whiskey-tainted penis. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's the case.

So basically, thanks to fellatio, I'm a waitress with no viable career options. No wonder I hate giving head so much.

Anyway, I really shouldn't talk down about the notion of being a food server. All things considered, it's not a bad job. I work part-time hours and still pull down, easily, $20,000 a year (which in a cheap cost-of-living market like mine, really isn't that bad). I work maybe a max of 4-5 hours a shift, I have cash at the end of the day that I hardly report to the federal government, and most of the people I work with are pretty cool. And I gorge myself on high-end Italian food on a regular basis. I really can't complain.

I'm a regular over at The Bitter Waitress forums, and after being there several months I've decided we are among the hardest working, most respect-deserving breed of people I know. So I say this to you, Mr. Hypothetical Businessman Who Thinks I Don't Work For My Money: go straight to hell. I am Super Waitress...

While others sit behind their computers in their cubicles, I'm running my ass off. I start my shift off already tired and pukey (thanks pregnancy!), and within a short period of time I am in charge of the well-being and happiness of four tables of people. Given at least four people at each table, usually, that's 16 human beings whose fate lies in my hands. And I know what's going on at each and every table, and am multitasking accordingly to make sure they stay happy -- and oh yes, if you're at one of my tables, you are, and will remain, happy. Table A needs refills, I'm already filling them at the drink station. Table B needs more bread, I'm picking it up between the drink station and my tables. Table C needs their orders taken, which I will do after I drop all this off, and Table D is ready to have their credit card run and to cash out, which I will grab after Table C's order is taken since Table D is pretty content to sit and sip on their coffee and chat for a few minutes.

All the while, I'm busting ass to get these people wined, dined, fed, and the hell out of my section so the next round of people can come sit and I can make as much money off of as many tables as I can without making them feel rushed, without their food looking or tasting like shit, and while being as cute and perky as humanly possible (despite waves of nausea -- thanks Baby!) because if I show even the slightest sign of weakness, grumpiness, nausea, tiredness, or just a hair off of the standard Crack-Addled Happiness, "OH MY GOD I LOVE MY JOB!" -- my income suffers. If you're having a shitty day, you still make the same amount of money. I don't get to have bad days.

As you look down your nose at servers, asking us questions like, "What's your REAL job?" and "What are you doing when you aren't serving?" -- um, this IS my real job and after I'm done serving I'm going to go home, do the laundry, and probably start dinner -- realize that most of us, in my restaurant at least, are college educated. We're writers, photographers, musicians, journalists, and... well, whatever philosophy majors do. We're dreamers, schemers, lovers (often with each other, we are a horny, repressed bunch), smokers, drinkers, thinkers and and so, SO much more than SERVERS.

After work, I get in my car, my feet and calves swollen and sore, my legs exhausted, and a little bit of alfredo sauce in my hair and osso buco sauce staining my shirt, and a few second degree burns on my fingers, and I drive home to my husband and my dog and I get a back rub from him while I rub my belly and talk to our unborn daughter. My apron sits in a crumpled mess on the couch, a shed superficial layer of who I am, and it will sit there unattended and unnoticed until tomorrow, when I get to do it all over again.

I would say 95% of the people I wait on are alright kinda folks. But for the rest, remember this when you sit down at your table and are greeted by a smile -- sometimes sincere and usually tired -- and remember we're people too. In fact... we're freaking amazing.

Learning to say "NO."

Being an adult also means learning how to recognize people that are just after your money, and learning to say "no" to them. I am sure I've mentioned this before, but I come from a very small town. I am, for lack of a better word, podunk. I am endearingly naive and I like to believe everyone's just a nice person. Okay, that was a big load of shit, I actually hate about 90% of the people I encounter daily -- I just hate confrontation and I get social anxiety when put in situations where I'm on the spot and need to say no.

Las Vegas is not a good place to be like me.

A and I quickly learned on our first day that everywhere you turned in Vegas, especially in our hotel, there are people from a resort called Tahiti Village trying to get you to come and listen to their timeshare presentation. I didn't know what a timeshare was, but judging by how quickly A would walk past them and/or ignore them, I assumed it wasn't anything good. But the name rang a bell and I remembered the commercials from back home with Alan Thicke telling me how much fun it was. And the dad from Growing Pains can't be wrong, right?

On our second day in Vegas we needed to go to get our marriage license (which a sidenote that maybe I'll come back to someday: it amazes and concerns me how easy that process was, but anyway...). Unsure where the license bureau was, we stopped by a little kiosk in the lobby appropriately labeled "Information Center" and asked. This is where all the trouble began.

The lady was nice and sweet and apparently we gave off a "itchin' to get hitched" vibe (could've been the baby belly, I suppose). And then the next thing I knew, she was asking if we wanted to get a gift certificate for $100 to the steakhouse in the hotel. Wha-wha-whaaaaaaa? Sounds fabulous! What happened in the next five minutes that ensued I'm really not sure. I think I may have blacked out -- all I remember thinking was "Prego want STEAK!" -- but next thing I know, we had forked over a $40 refundable deposit and were signed up for a "resort tour" at 4 p.m.

I say "we" like this was a mutual decision. It was not. I just was not taking A's hints that this was not what we wanted to do. This was all me. As he would continue to remind me throughout the remainder of the trip. And the three hour timeshare presentation we sat through, while repeatedly telling the salesman "No... no.... no, we're not interested... no..."

I mean, let's be honest. We're in our 20's, obviously have a little one on the way, and most likely, let's be real honest here, we're not loaded. Do you really think we want a timeshare for a resort in Las Vegas? No, no we don't. Tell Alan Thicke to stop telling me how fun it would be, because I'm not interested. I just wanted steak. That's all I wanted. And to get my $40 back.

A was thoroughly annoyed with me. Three hours later, we had a long, quiet shuttle ride back to the hotel. Although the $100 steak dinner the next night was fabulous -- after that he quit spitefully reminding me quite as much.

And so was the story of my first lesson as a wife: when your husband says "I don't know, I think that interferes with plans we made", heed his hints. It's like the code word "banana" when Prego's feeling especially feisty. But that's another grown-up lesson for another day.

She's an honest woman now...

To briefly explain my recent absence, you may recall that I had a wedding coming up. Yep, A and I got hitched in Las Vegas and as of about 1:10 PST on Halloween, October 31, 2007, I'm officially a married woman. He showed up to the chapel, we didn't have any guests to stress over, and we had lots of matrimonial fun in Sin City. The downer? Having to come home to 30 degree weather and my shitty waitressing job. Ah well, can't get everything you want...

Wax on, wax off.

So it's five days and counting til your favorite obscene prego is made an honest woman in Sin City. (That's on Halloween, for anyone that's doing the math. A picked the date if he promised that he'd stay out of the planning process -- thanks to this deal, we are not having a themed costume wedding or getting married by Elvis.) Being the dutiful almost-wife that I am, I decided that I should give him a wedding gift. Being the oversexed hornballs that we both are (which is, incidentally, how we got to this state), I decided the best wedding gift I could give him would be a full on Brazilian wax.

If you're not familiar with the Brazilian wax, it is essentially having every semblance of hair ripped out of your pubic region. I had never waxed down there. I'd kept it shaven, shorn and well-groomed in the year we'd been together, but never waxed. It had gotten Amazon jungle-esque in the last month or so, however -- out of sight, out of mind. Once your pregnant bump covers things like that up, you just sort of stop worrying about it. Do I still have feet?

Interesting note about my prudent preening: I wasn't OCD about pubic hair until I started dating A. On "the date" that I knew we'd inevitably "hook up," I shaved it all off. I thought I would try to be sexy. Boy, I wish I knew what I was getting into, because after that I thought he thought I was like this ALL the time, so I then had to spend a year of constant shaving and grooming down there so as to not disappoint. So note to girls: if you think you're going to marry the guy, or if there's even the slightest possibility, don't get his hopes up early. Let him see you in all your hairy glory. If he can't handle it, then it wasn't meant to be. I call it the Pube Test. You can pay me for this golden advice later.

Living in the Midwest and trying to find a salon that does Brazilian waxing is like looking for a cleavage shot in Iran. There aren't any salons that do it. It's bad enough that I had to suck up all modesty I had and render whatever courage I had left, waddle my pregnant ass into a salon and ask if they did Brazilian waxes. You get looked at like you're some sort of brazen hussy. So I don't like having hair on my vajayjay, and yes, I am asking if you'd like to rip it out for me, DAMN woman stop persecuting me. So when a stylist friend of mine pointed me in the direction of the only salon in the city that does Brazilians, I ran to the place to make an appointment ASAP. It was like a magical, hairless oasis in a desert of conservative bush. (Great, now that I typed that, anyone looking for political talk is going to come to my blog... sorry, Republicans, I'm liberal AND I preen my naughty bits. How's THAT for a Halloween scare?)

I spent the morning leading up to the appointment debating whether or not I really wanted to go through it. I could just shave like I always do and it's not like he'd know any different. He just sees vagina and goes for it, like any man. And I could save the pain and the $50. I turned the car around once. A told me, "Don't be doing this for me." (No, darling, I LIKE having scalding wax poured onto my nasty bits and having all the hair ripped out, fuck you, this is for me and my sadistic jollies!) So he's got his liability taken care of because he offered that disclaimer. But I decided, you know what, this is my wedding and my honeymoon. If all goes well, this is the only time in my life I'm ever going to do this. I should go all out and get waxed and just, fucking, do it.

So I did. I showed up. Said I had an appointment. Got a lot of sympathetic looks around the salon. And I went to the back room and per the waxer's instructions, stripped down everything from the waist down.

Contrary to the rumors about me in high school, I'm not a slut. I'm not used to having everything out there all laying out for just anyone to see. But my friends who've had the waxing done (and Google) all told me it's no different than going to your gyno. Okay, I've been seeing the same gyno (and he is now my obstetrician) since I was 16. That's a six year relationship. That's a lot of commitment to show up and spread your legs. I have known this woman, WOMAN!, five minutes, and she's about to see everything. If you can be nonchalant about such an intimate moment, you're a stronger (and whorier) woman than I am.

I'll spare you the details. If you want to know, google it. It's how I learn about the world and it has taught me everything. But from the first rip to the last rip over my holiest of holies, I will say this: HOLY. FUCK. I have a strong pain tolerance. I've endured two tattoos, one of which is on the top of my foot which is notoriously painful, and ten piercings (and only five are in my ears, I'll let you start speculating where the others are, but whatever you're thinking, you're probably right.) I've broken my nose, I've sprained and dislocated things, stubbed toes, pounded hammers on thumbs, and I will say: this hurt like I have never known. I saw Jesus. Yes, I saw Jesus hovering above me, welcoming me into his arms as I was having my sinful naughty little hoo hoo waxed and abused by a very unsympathetic woman (I'm overreacting -- she was very sweet, just not when she was ripping hot, dried wax off my crotch). SAVE ME, JESUS, SAVE ME FROM THE PAIN! I AM A SINNER AND A HUSSY AND HOLY YOU, IT FUCKING HURTS! I'M SORRY I JUST SAID FUCKING, JESUS! GOD BLESS YOU, GOD! (Name that last reference, win a cookie.)

She asked me if I wanted to check things out when she was finished after the longest twenty minutes of my life. I told her I was going to need a unique contraptions of mirrors in order to see everything, and just took her word for it that it was all good. I mean, if you're going to be waxing peoples' sin lips, you've gotta have some degree of pride in your work, right? This isn't some sort of Bush administration where you just do things all willy nilly with no consideration to the needs or opinions of the people you're working for.

I waddled to my car feeling violated and liberated all at once. Then I went home and took one of the frozen barbecued chickens out of the freezer and laid on the couch feeling sorry for myself for the rest of the afternoon. (Don't worry A, I kept the chicken in the bag, you'll never know the difference between the regular chicken and the crotch chicken.)

He better fucking realize how much I love him.

No. You can't touch my belly.

Being a grown-up also means you have to be patient. I am not a patient person, not at all. Not ever, not in the slightest. I'm getting better, but truth be told, I am generally intolerant of people, I think most people are idiots, and at any given point in time (thanks to the magic of hormones), I hate 95% of the people I encounter during the day.

I'm especially intolerant to being touched. Coming from a non-touchy-feely family, I am not a big hugger. I don't like touching people. I'm weird about strangers touching me, or even friends and family if the physical contact is not initiated from my end first. So you can imagine how my patience and my neuroses take a double-hit with strangers that feel that because I'm pregnant, I must obviously have no problem whatsoever with them touching my belly.

I don't mind Andy touching it. I don't mind family or even friends, or most of my coworkers. It's taken me nearly six long months to finally come to terms with my knockedupitude, and now that I'm embracing it, I'm proud to share it with the world. But this doesn't make me any less pissed or weirded out when strangers, complete and total strangers in completely ambiguous, generic public places, feel the need to rub my belly.

If you are not pregnant and don't know anyone that is pregnant, and somehow just stumbled across this blog, if there is ANYTHING you take away from my documentation of pregnancy, know this. NEVER question what a pregnant woman wants to eat, and NEVER, EVER, EVER touch her belly. It's like approaching a sketchy-looking man walking with a rabid-looking pitbull. You ASK before you touch. Otherwise, I really can't promise I won't bite you, claw your eyes out, or verbally insult your mother.

Old ladies are the worst. You can't get mad, but at the same time, I think they do it because they're old and think they can. Like driving 10 mph on the Interstate, urinating on themselves in public, or never, ever tipping when they eat out (not that I'm bitter... oh no). I have lost count of the number of old ladies that come up and touch my stomach when I'm somewhere like Wal-Mart and then want to strike up an hour-long discussion of how I'm too skinny to be 23 weeks along. Look, lady, I just want to take my keylime pie and brownie mix (which I assure you will never see the oven, just a bowl and a spatula) and make my way over to Krispy Kreme and gorge. I don't want to talk to you. You want to talk to or about something rotund and equally disinterested in you, I recommend going over to produce and talking to a melon. You will never know the difference, I promise.

I've had a couple creepy guys come up to me too, and I think they are almost WORSE than old ladies. Apparently because I'm knocked up, it can be assumed that my "creepy guy radar" is no longer functioning. You're wrong. Don't talk to me. Don't touch me. Yes, I am pregnant, Captain Observant. No, you can't rub coacoa butter on it. There are plenty of websites out there for sickies like you, just let me look for frames and matting here in peace.

Maybe I'm callous and rude. Maybe I should embrace the beauty of my glowing pregnancy and let the world in on my joy. Or maybe I should just walk around with a gigantic neon sign above my head warning people not to touch the prego.

But... considering my varying hormone levels... I wouldn't necessarily mind the occasional physical assault on one of those weirdos, either. I actually might welcome that.

Epiphany.

I now interrupt this otherwise obscenity- and inappropriate humor-filled blog for a brief post that's halfway deep and serious. I promise after this post I'll go back to being the usual offensive Prego that we all know and love... or not, whatever.

Have you ever noticed that life's big epiphanies occur at the strangest moments? I always expect them to hit me at movie-perfect moments where I stare wistfully into space and some deep and moving song comes on in the background and the camera slowly pans in to a close up of my face, and through my eyeball and pupil into my brain and you can see all the little goblins in there coming together to produce important life lessons. Or something. I always picture my life being way more dramatic and cinematic than it is.

But instead the big realizations hit you at strange, otherwise mundane moments. I had one tonight as I arrived home from my job waiting tables at a high-end Italian restaurant. My feet, legs and back hurt. I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to actually get out of my car. I had the cell phone prepared to call A to come outside and cart my prego ass into the house. I was exhausted from a long shift and a long day and just wanted to come home.

When I pulled up to our house, I realized how happy I was to see the lights in the house on. To have someone to come home to -- my best friend, the man that in less than two weeks is going to be my husband, and the father of our child. Inside the house, he's probably sitting in his boxers on the computer, and our dog -- OUR dog now, he used to be MY dog -- will be rolling on the floor with his stuffed toys. Probably his stuffed Bear.

If you'd told me a year ago that this was going to be my reality, I would have blown you off and told you to go fuck yourself. Even when I first realized I was pregnant, the only thing I could think was, this isn't how it's supposed to be. I was supposed to graduate college, I was supposed to find a fabulous job that would kickstart my career quickly after graduation, I was supposed to get the hell out of this city/town and travel the world. I was supposed to never get married and never settle down, and probably never have kids. I'm talented at what I do, I'm pretty and smart and motivated and the whole world lay at my feet.

Instead, I'm 22, still waiting tables because the job market in journalism is so depressingly shitty, getting married in a quickie Vegas shotgun wedding, and visibly pregnant with my first child. There was a point in my life where I would've thought this was all wrong. And I'm sitting there in my car looking at the front door of my house and can't wait to go inside to my almost-husband and lay on the couch feeling my baby kicking.

I used to think this isn't how it's supposed to be -- but now I'm realizing there is no "supposed to be" in life. I read a quote somewhere... probably Facebook... that said, "If you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans." It amazes me how much that's true.

In the meantime, I'll be here, in our little house on the cul de sac with cats in the front yard that run when they see people because they've been kicked so many times (I wouldn't know why), with my fiance' in his boxer shorts and torn up Bad Religion concert t-shirt and our dog that is species-confused. Just in case you need me.

*end serious post*

The official information...

... that I haven't gotten around to directly mentioning...



Yes, that's right, I am having a girl. Tentatively, at least. The doctor couldn't get the greatest view of her girly parts at the last visit (as it should be -- my daughter should be chaste and prudent), but he did say to me, "Do you see those three lines right there?" as he pointed to what looked like nothingness on the ultrasound screen. Apparently we were looking at baby vajayjay. We find out for sure next Wednesday at my next routine check-up, so either we'll be leaving on the 29th for our Vegas getaway feeling vindicated that we now know for sure it's a girl, or I'll be leaving horribly disappointed surprised that I'm having a boy.

ANYWAY... pending that it is indeed a girl we are having, A and I have chosen the name Sophia Elaine. We will call her Sophie for short. The name, however, like the gender, is also tentative. By "tentative" I mean he keeps coming up with names and I keep giving him exhausted and pained looks wishing he'd quit. She is not being named after anyone. I decided that after getting pressure from both sides, and knowing the horrible disappointment that would inevitably ensue regardless of what I chose, I just decided to give this little girl a chance to start life off as HERSELF and not in the expectations that come with being named after someone. If that makes sense in a hippie sort of way.

My due date switched around quite a bit in the beginning due to her small size. However, the original date I was given was too early, and the date I was later given would have placed conception in a time frame that was impossible (long story but I know we weren't having sex then). But the doctor finally settled on February 14, 2008 as the date of Sophie's Great Escape. Easy to remember, but I'm just hoping that if she IS born on time, she isn't set up for a lifetime of disappointing Valentine's Days by boyfriends that can't live up to the expectations of an already high-expectation romantic holiday PLUS a birthday. But if she's anything like her father or myself, she'll probably be late. I don't think A or myself is capable of being on time to anything.

So there's the important stuff I get asked about a lot. Stop asking. I'm getting hormonal and less patient about answering questions. Or having strangers touch my belly without asking. But that's a whole 'nother post.

You're so vain...

If there's one thing I'm learning about pregnancy and impending mommyhood, it is that vanity is a concept unknown -- and unwelcome -- in this strange new territory.

I've never been extremely high maintenance. Okay, maybe a little high maintenance. I just happened to spend the majority of my life being extremely spoiled so that I enjoy nicer things. I love my $80 Editor pants from Express (have you tried them? They make your ass look AMAZING). I love my Seven jeans. I love my Dolce & Gabbana shoes. And my MAC makeup, Tiffany jewelry and Coach purses. I like nice things. The more expensive the better. I maxed out the "just for emergencies" credit card from my parents numerous times to the point that it was closed the day after graduation. Thanks Mom...

I have an amazing genetic makeup that makes me a freak of nature. Before I became pregnant, I lived off of Italian food (hello, carbs!) and fast food. If it was deep fried, sugar-filled and chock full of trans fat, I was all over it. And I still maintained a svelte 5'10, 140 lb. figure. I sparked bulemia rumors back in the sorority days, and those that didn't believe I had an eating disorder just thought I was one lucky bitch. So when I did become pregnant, up until my fifth month I had gained a total of one, yes, ONE, UNO, EINS... pound.

Then it happened. The baby decided she was going to be making herself known in all her radiant glory (oh yeah, it's a girl by the way), and all of a sudden, BOOM, I had the prego belly. I never went through the "chubby or pregnant?" phase. I just went straight from overactive metabolism to pregnant orca whale. There was no gradualism to it. So you can imagine how excited I was shopping for clothes for our impending Vegas wedding/vacation and realizing I was now too big for even the sizes I'd once deemed entirely too large.

Oh yes, and another thing -- shopping for sexy lingerie in stores like Victoria's Secret (and racier stores, it's my honeymoon, give me a break, a girl's gotta get her freak on once in a while) is always fun when you have an obvious pregnant bump. You get the strange feeling that everyone looking at you is thinking, "Haven't you had ENOUGH sex? Haven't you learned your lesson you little harlot?"

My vanity was gone and I was shopping in the plus size department, until finally I mustered up the courage to peek in the maternity store.

I will say this: everyone working in the maternity store is pregnant. I am thoroughly convinced they strap those empathy bellies from high school on these chicks. And I decided after one trip -- and getting totally freaked out, I don't know why -- that all maternity clothes are ugly and overpriced. I'm looking at these jeans with these GIGANTIC kangaroo freaking pouches in the front and I'm thinking, "What is THAT?" I told my mother of this and she said, "Oh, just wait." This isn't not reassuring.

In the meantimes, I hate maternity clothes. Besides being ugly, they're just... no, that's pretty much it, they're ugly. I don't want to look like used goods sent packing in a muumuu and sweatpants. I want to be hot. I mean, seriously, how the HELL do celebrities like Angelina Jolie look so damn hot? It's not fair, I thought to myself as I stared begrudgingly at the empire-waisted empire laid out before me.

My bump is cute. My newly expanded ass is not.

And so the battle against maternity clothes continues...

Prego vs. the Neighbor, Round 1

One thing I am learning about being a grown-up is learning how to deal with people you don't like, especially when they live thirty feet across the street from you. The world is filled with people. People of varied colors, backgrounds, cultures, orientations, and stances on just how much control they can wield over their pets. My conflict with our neighbor across the street comes from the latter of these options.

A little background information, first. I hate cats. I grew up in a house full of cats that despite my mother's best efforts, pissed everywhere. Have you ever smelled cat piss? It is probably the foulest thing I have ever smelled, and you can't get it out of the carpet. It lingers, forever. On top of that I just plain don't like cats. My neighbor across the street, whom A and I call "Creepy Guy," disagrees. And that's fine. I choose to have one dog and no cats, he chooses to have no dogs and 20 cats. Okay, cool.

The point where conflict comes in is the fact that Creepy Guy does nothing to contain his cats. They run the neighborhood. His idea of feeding them is opening a bag of cat food and spreading it through his backyard. They are everywhere. They like to lounge in the middle of the road in our cul de sac. They crawl on A's black car and leave footprints. And a few times they have found their way into our house. Don't ask me how. But they do. I frequently find them on our porch, on our back deck, in our garage.... it gets annoying. It isn't my job to care for, or house, or not feed antifreeze to, this man's cats.

Now that we've had enough background information, I present to you the confrontation. I woke up around 10 a.m., per usual, and went into the kitchen to let Bo, my dog, out of his kennel and let him out to potty. I am wearing my normal sleeping attire -- size-too-big wife beater and a pair of A's boxers -- as I open the back door to let Bo out. He normally goes out the back deck to the backyard, does his thing, comes back inside. I don't chain him up or restrain him. He pees on the bush, comes inside. I am 3% conscious, running mostly on routine. I open the door, and out goes Bo...

And there's a cat on the back deck. Bo sees cat. Cat sees Bo. Bo barks at cat. Cat tears off down the street. Bo tears off after cat. I tear off after Bo and cat, all while muttering obscenities I think are reserved only for the dirtiest of sailors.

The cat eventually finds its hiding place under Creepy Guy's car. Bo pursues the cat under the car and I find myself on my hands and knees trying to retrieve my dog, with my naughty bits hanging out for all the world to see. As Bo is barking at the cat, I hear a front door open. Out comes Creepy Guy, which I think is just great.

And I hear, before I even have a chance to look up, "Keep your goddamn dog in your own yard."

Okay. normal, sane, non-pregnant Prego would have been pretty peeved, but oh no, this bastard was getting barely-conscious, very pissed off, hormonally-charged Super Prego. I grab Bo and stand up -- pretty sure half a boob is hanging out and I just don't care -- and I stare at him for a cold, awkward second.

"FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION THAT," I said. "Because MY dog would stay in MY yard if your GODDAMN CAT would have been in your yard... but wait, your cats are never in your fucking yard! They are in our yard. They're in the neighbors' yards. They're in the street. It's not the neighborhood's job to take care of your damn cats! If I see YOUR cats on MY property again, I will call animal control. And your cats are so damn FERAL that I'm sure they'll rot and die in the shelter..."

By this point Bo is so pissed that he can't get to the cat and he has now pissed on me. So I'm holding a peeing dog, have at least half, if not full, boob exposure, and I am LIVID. And I'm continuing to scream threats at him as I walk back to my house...

I still see the cats all over. A keep suggesting we leave out a bowl of antifreeze out for the cats, since it's apparently sweet, and the cats basically fry from the inside out. But now that I've had confrontation with Creepy Guy, I'm afraid he'd KNOW it was us. So I just resign myself to deliberately kicked the cats in front of him if he's outside and I come out and find cats in our yard.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be an ongoing thing.

Finger Lickin' Crazy

We now take a break from our regularly-scheduled chronological storytelling to flash forward to a now five-month pregnant and newly engaged Prego and her beloved.

By this time, A and I were finally officially engaged. Yes, he was going to make an honest woman out of me. Rather than planning a full-on wedding, we decided to go to Vegas and tie the knot -- something that really didn't surprise anyone who knew either or both of us. Part of this planning process included buying wedding bands, something we decided to do on a day we were both off work.

We opted to take my car with me at the helm. A frequently mocks my driving, and I'll admit it, I drive like shit. I drive with the craziness of an elderly blind woman combined with the reckless disregard for human life of a NASCAR driver. I am an asshole driver, and put me in situations of higher volume traffic and added frustration or distractions, I really can't promise the safety of anyone in or out of my car.

We were relying on the directions provided by A's phone to find the jewelry store. Just a note, don't rely on directions provided by a 3" by 4" piece of plastic and microchips. Also, when looking for a location you've previously never been to, don't allow a crazy pregnant woman behind the wheel.

So after driving back and forth in front of the same strip mall where I was convinced the store was, we were discovering there was no store. No jewelry store in sight. We drove around the area. Surveyed the area. Went into little strip malls that we were about 90% certain the store was not located. I was pissed. I was frustrated. I just wanted to find the goddamn store and buy the goddamn wedding band for my goddamn fiance'. My car was almost out of gas, I was frustrated, tired, hungry, and getting cranky fast.

I don't remember what A said or did, but I snapped. I'd fucking had it. And A, never one to put up with my shit (which 99% of the time is something I've always loved about him), and he in no uncertain terms let me know that I was crossing the fine line between loving, darling, demure fiance' and Crazy Fucking Pregnant Bitch.

It was at this point I, for all intensive purposes, lost my proverbial shit. I was crying. Nay, I was sobbing. Snot, tears, and saliva everywhere. I was crying because I couldn't find the jewelry store. I was crying because I'd lost my temper with the person I love more than anything in this world. I was crying because I was hungry and tired and needed a nap. I cried for my unborn child having a seatbelt across her head. I cried for Ohio State losing to Florida. I cried for runt puppies not being able to reach their mother dog's teat, for kittens that can't unravel a ball of yarn, for the Indian who just saw you litter on the side of the road. I cried for the simple fact that I'd forgotten what I was crying about.

We finally found a jewelry store. Not the one we were originally looking for, no, this was a scary ghetto-looking jewelry store with bars on the windows and Korean people inside. I was still a puffy, red, sobbing mess, still trying to get a grib on myself, when I sobbingly (yes, it's a word, don't tell me it's not or I swear to God I'll cry again) said we can't shop for wedding bands when I'm obviously crying. So A sat and waited for me to compose myself. But as soon as he'd say something like, "Are we good? Are you okay now?" I would lose it all over again. At this point, the jewelry store was going to be closing in five minutes.

"What do you want?" A asked.

Given the situation, one would assume he was asked what I wanted the next course of action to be. Do we seek out an open jewelry store? Do we go into this store despite the fact it's about to close? Do we give up? That would be what you'd think he was asking. But my response was...

*long, snotty, tear-filled, loogie-sounding, longest inhale ever* "I WANT CHICKEN!!!!" *SOB!!!*

And so, we went to KFC because all I wanted at that point was extra crispy recipe chicken legs and KFC macaroni and mashed potatoes. I wanted the damn buffet. I paid for dinner as my apology for being Crazy Pregnant Bitch. And as I stood in front of the buffet, I felt tears welling up again to the point that they couldn't be controlled.

Not because I was happy. Though the sight was pleasant. Nay, it was just because they didn't have macaroni on the buffet.

So I sat through dinner like a four-year-old that has just been spanked, occasionally sniffling and hiccuping and eating my mashed potatoes with a look of resentment previously unknown.

We never went wedding band shopping again. The internet is a wonderful thing.

And then there's the parents.

A and I are two very different people, and this could very well be the result of the fact that we spawned from two very different parenting philosophies. Our next major stop on the magical prego journey was telling the parents... though I was quite alright with the notion of letting them all think I just got really fat, and then babysat a lot.

HIS PARENTS... found out not long after we ourselves found out. Father's Day weekend, in fact. He and I had a course of action for telling them (he would tell them, I would sit demurely and smile like I wasn't a brazen hussy that slept with their eldest son outside of the sanctity of marriage... you know, no big deal). But somehow we moved away from the plan as A commented that all of the pictures of him in the house were disappearing and being replaced with pictures of his nephew (currently the only grandchild, though A's sister was expecting another baby in October, but that's beside the point).

"Well," A's dad said, "Start having kids of your own and we'll put pictures of them up."
"Well," A replied, "What do you think about having another grandchild in February?"

There was a stunned silence. They looked at me. They looked at him. They cried, hugged, were ecstatic. A's mom, ever the joyous grandmother, was in baby heaven. One more grandbaby in October, and ANOTHER in February? I thought the woman's head was going to pop off in sheer joy. Of course the first question (after "Are you serious?") was "Are you two going to get married?"

The rest of the afternoon was quite enjoyable. I've always liked A's parents, namely because they aren't crazy... like mine.

MY PARENTS found out about a month and a half later. I apologize for jumping all over the time space continuum here, but really, in that month and a half, it was just a blur of puking and crying. With that, you're already pretty much up to speed.

In order to understand my relationship with my parents, you first need to understand this: I am the colossal disappointment in my family. The touted "child prodigy," I was very advanced. Took advanced courses, took the ACT for the first time at age 11, tested freakishly high on state administered IQ and standardized tests, won spelling bees, piano competitions against children years older than me, speech competitions, coloring contests... if there was a ribbon or trophy or medal to be won in the tri-county area from about 1994 to 1998, I won it, and it is most likely in a box in my parents' attic.

Then I got tired of being the freak in school and around high school discovered alcohol and marijuana and boys. The pattern since high school has been that as soon as I build up my parents' trust and pride in me, I will, inevitably, crash it down. I was captain of multiple sports teams, involved in various organizations (and president of most of them), and the quintessential "golden child" in high school, then began dating a slew of bad boys, getting ridiculously drunk, and basically doing typical teenage things, only it seemed much worse considering what a "good kid" I had been. In college, I was getting a 3.8 GPA, president of a large sorority, editor of the campus newspaper, and then damn near got myself thrown out of college and had to transfer.

So really, the only next logical step was to screw up after I got their hopes up with graduation. And the only thing worse than getting knocked up a week after graduation, in my mother's eyes, was perhaps killing someone. Or maybe those are reversed. I'm really not sure.

By this point I had my first ultrasound, which if you've ever seen early ultrasounds, they are very boring. If it wasn't my kid in the picture, and if the picture hadn't been taken by shoving a weird ultrasound stick thing up my wazoo, I would have found it very anticlimactic. So I went to my parents' house by myself (A had offered to come, but knowing the huge shit storm that would inevitably hit, I left him at home so fight it on my own... until you've dealt with a bipolar mother firsthand, you are in no way prepared for this), ultrasound in my purse, and after a nice dinner with my parents, I announced I had some news.

I took out the ultrasound and handed it to my mom. I told them I was pregnant, how far along I was, that A and I were prepared for this and we were mature adults and ready to handle it. I have never heard a deafening silence like this before. You could have heard a pin drop in Russia. Mom didn't cry. I would've preferred it if she had. Dad just sighed, and said they were expecting their first grandchild to come from my 17-year-old brother.

The only thing worse than a bad reaction is no reaction at all. There was none. And there continued to be one in the months to follow. It was like my parents were living in a glorious state of denial. For a while, they just didn't speak to me. Then it was awkward speaking, but never about the baby or the fact that I was having one. This is the pattern that continues today with my discussions with the parents. And we won't even approach the subject that their daughter, their firstborn, darling daughter, is on Medicaid to pay for the child.

To date, A's parents have bought us a slew of baby things. My parents have bought us none. His mother can't wait to talk to me again, see my growing belly, etc. I basically wear a burka around my parents so they don't have to see the bump -- not a matter of hiding the bump, per se, but keeping something unpleasant out of sight. My mother refuses to even tell my invalid grandmother about the baby, just because of the strong disapproval that I would face. I'm not even sure who of my extended family knows I'm pregnant. I assume very few, since my parents are embarassed by the situation.

I'm not bitter.

But I am still looking for my purse.

The story continues...by stepping back.

So in order to understand how I wound up sitting in the public assistance office between the angry mother and the smelly raggedy gentile, you have to rewind a little bit. Not quite as far as my college graduation. Actually, it's about a month after graduation. This is where things get hazy as I stare into space with a far off look in my eye.

I had been out of college about a month. It had been one hell of a month. I was desperately searching for a job -- which, thanks to my alcoholic high school guidance counselor, who told me journalism was a "great career path," I was totally unaware of the nearly nonexistent job market til I was post-graduation -- and in the meantime was paying the bills and the rent with my nearly-full time job as a waitress at a higher-end Italian restaurant. It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't where I thought I'd be at 22 with a college degree in hand. But I was in the process of moving in with my boyfriend, A, so I figured by splitting bills and mortgage payments, at the very least, my financial situation wouldn't be an absolute disaster.

As busy as I'd been, I'd failed to notice one particularly important missing aspect of my monthly to-do list: my period. It wasn't until I actually had five seconds to myself to stop and think that I realized, I hadn't had one in... well, shit... had it been two months? I looked at the calendar in desperation. I should've been on my period at graduation. Thiking back, I remembered feeling incredibly uncomfortable, sweaty, sticky, and unhappy... unfortunately, vaginal bleeding was not in that equation of discomfort. Now, a month past graduation, I still had not had a period to speak of. I had been so busy that I had forgotten to notice.

Fuck.

I sat in denial for a few days. It occurred to me to stop by the Wal-Mart a few days later to pick up a pregnancy test, but denial is a tricky bitch. I drove past the Wal-Mart and thought... "Maybe tomorrow, if I still haven't started." Tomorrow came. My period did not. So after spending a sleepless night of stressing over it -- and thoroughly pissing off early-rising A with my tossing and turning -- I went to Wal-Mart at 7 a.m. and bought a pregnancy test.

It's a strange feeling, sitting in your bathroom, peeing on a stick and realizing that what you're peeing on could very well determine your next course in life. Your pee is dictating your life in that split second. Pee. Urine. Waste. Then you start thinking about things too much and realize you just peed on your hand, and in doing so, dropped the pregnancy test in the toilet.

That's why they put two in the package, in case you were wondering.

So I tried it again. I put the now peed-on pregnancy test on the side of the bathtub and I went into the living room. And I paced. I watched The People's Court and I rearranged the shit on the coffee table about four times before I decided that it had been long enough. I went into the bathroom and stared down the ominous little white stick, which was now covered in my pee (I had washed my hands, if you were curious).

It was positive.

Holy fuck. I'm pregnant. Holy fucking shit. A's fertile. How the hell were we to know? As much pot as the two of us had smoked, along with his little bout with testicular cancer years ago, common logic (and the fact I really didn't pay much attention in sex ed in high school) would have dictated the fact that his little guys probably didn't swim well. And I remembered back to a very drunken night where we'd gone condomless...which wasn't entirely unusual for us, I was on birth control after all and that's foolproof, right?... and remembering a drunken exchange of, "In or out? Do you want me to come in or out?" and before I could slur out a response... well... you know.

He was at work. I was home alone. It was me and the dog, and Judge Marilyn Milian. And now there was this thing inside of me, apparently. Me, the dog, People's Court, and this thing. So I did what any rational human being in my situation would do: I went to Wal-Mart and bought six more pregnancy tests.

They all came out positive. Statistics couldn't be wrong.

And so I called A at work. Told him to come home as soon as he could -- he was known for taking off early. He thought I'd either found his porn collection (which I found about a month into our courtship and couldn't care less) or that I was leaving him. Much against my own intentions, he dragged it out of me on the phone, and when he came home, it was a strange and awkward silence. It wasn't just us. Or the dog. Or Maury. (Maury was on by the time he came home.) There was now this THING. This future person. Inside of me. Part me, part him, part Long Island Iced Tea and whiskey.

Once the "fuck" and the "wow" calmed down, "fuck" settled back in when the sad realization came about that waitresses don't have health coverage. And because we were not married, he and I could not collect his health insurance. Which left little option besides paying out of pocket, which between a waitress and a retail manager was less than swingable.

And so... three weeks later (that's how long the stages of denial and acceptance take, if you're curious)... here I was, in the public assistance office for the third time (after being denied the first time, being told I didn't have enough information the second time), having now waited 20 minutes for my appointment with my as-yet-unknown caseworker, just trying to get the great State to tell me it was okay to have a kid on their dime. I mean, let's be honest, as least I was working and paying into the system.

The system, by the way... is shit. I realized this as I was sitting sandwiched among the unemployed and the disabled and the over-spawned. It made me rethink being a Democrat, quite honestly. And as I was sitting there, admittedly with an air of slight, and I still feel warranted, superiority, I could feel the angry stares at me. I just kept thinking to myself, "I'm a nice girl. I come from a nice family. I'm smart. I just need health coverage."

(Which on a side note it's interesting to note that when I went to the neighborhood free clinic for my pregnancy test for official medical confirmation that I was pregnant -- which meant more peeing on things -- I was offered information on getting my GED. They seemed both surprised and awestruck as I carefully mentioned I had just graduated with my bachelor's degree.)

So now you know why I was sitting here in a place where I was so obviously fish out of water. I wasn't even fish out of water. I was fish in the middle of the damn Sahara.

I'm a nice girl. I come from a nice family. I'm a smart girl. I am above this. I am... hey, where'd my purse go?

And so it begins...

Considering my high school graduating class had a grand total of 70 people in it, graduating with a college class of over 4,000 took a little longer than I had anticipated. Sitting twenty-some rows back from the stage in the same arena I had seen Rob Zombie, Incubus, Chingy, and Ja Rule, in between two people I only vaguely knew from the few times I actually showed up to class, I really wasn't paying much attention to the motivational speeches intended to "jump start" my entrance into adulthood.

Quite honestly, the cheap Josten's polyester robe was making me sweaty and chaffy (is that a word?), and sitting on sticky sweaty ass for three hours kind of dampens the thrill of the culmination of four years of hard work.

I won't lie. I didn't really work THAT hard in college. I showed up to class maybe half to 75% of the time, rarely took notes, occasionally slept, and frequently texted people from my discreet seat, usually somewhere in the third or fourth row. Yet when test time came around, or final papers and projects were due, I always came through in the clutch. It was the double-edged sword that was my blessing and my curse. On the positive side, I was graduating college as valedictorian of my department and in four years to boot. But on the other hand, here I was, graduating with a very expensive piece of paper that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with it. For all I was concerned, I was content being a waitress with part-time hours, full-time income, and no drug testing.

And so, with as much pomp and circumstance as I'd applied to the four years leading up to that evening, I graduated college with a pocket full of dreams, only minimal brain damage from four years of binge drinking, and looming student loans that were approaching as ominously as a geriatric in a mobilized Wal-Mart wheelchair.

Who knew that four months after graduating from one of the largest universities in the country I'd be sitting, equally as bored and annoyed, in the public assistance office.

I was flanked by a very large woman with three children under the age of five, all running around screaming (which I can't help but assume they learned from her, as much as she was screaming at them) and a man who smelled a lot like our kitchen when I let the dishes go about a week without washing. I sat there with my $400 Coach purse, my Tiffany bracelet (a graduation gift), and my carefully manicured toes, wondering how the hell I got here, and why it is I couldn't master the system like my current peers in waiting apparently had.

I don't know quite how I got here. But it's quite an interesting story to tell.