This is a public service announcement.
Dear Readers,
I love you, but HAVE YOU GONE MAD?
I write one little post about premature menopause, and before I can say “Yasmin,” I’m suspected of pregnancy? Mercy hell sakes alive.
Poor Kyle and I are a two-person family. There’s no room in the frame for anyone else right now. Maybe it’s a little out of focus, but it’s a good picture anyway. Cayman Islands, May 2009.
I was on the white pill week (menstruating, if you will {How unfortunate that I have sunk so low as to use that atrocious word in a blog post, huh? I know.}) the day I flew down to Arizona for dear Great Uncle Henry’s life celebration. My dwindling stash of Playtex Sport (regular absorbtion) proved I wasn’t pregnant then; I’m certainly not pregnant now, less than a week later. Poor Kyle stayed in Canada, you see, and as far as it was explained to me during the Fifth Grade sex talk, making babies takes both eggs and sperm. I might be dumb, but I’m nowhere near stupid enough to be a floozy while Poor Kyle waits patiently for my return to Canada. His is all the sperm I’ll ever need.
How awkward.
So no. I’m not pregnant. I’m not trying to get pregnant. I don’t expect to be any time soon.
Now that we’ve got that settled, readers, I would like to share one funny story with you about my weekend. This is the one about me and The Comeback. The Comeback, as in the single-most brilliant retort I’ve ever delivered with pitch-perfect accuracy and without missing a beat. It’s almost as if someone had written the script for me…
After my Great Uncle Henry’s funeral was over, all the family members who’d attended the funeral congregated for an organised luncheon put on by our church (birth, death, baptism, wedding—we eat a lot in our culture). As I made my way between tables full of family members I hadn’t seen in years, I paused to visit with some dear cousins and their parents. My uncle, who I’ve always been a little scared of, began the teasing and good-natured ribbing almost immediately after I sat down.
“So, Mill-mill, where’s that Canadian husband of yours?”
“Oh, he’s back home enjoying his week as a bachelor.” It was my formula answer to the question I’d heard a hundred times already that day from well-meaning relatives. (My relatives are nothing if not well-meaning. I love ’em all.)
Taking my response as a cue to prod into our family planning schedule, my uncle asked, “So when are you guys gonna get pregnant?”
And friends, I tell you, what I said next was inspired. I swear to you it was not pre-meditated:
In a moment of unadulterated genius, I replied with a straight face, “Oh, didn’t you know? Kyle can’t. Get pregnant, that is. Never has, never will. It’s really pretty sad.”
There was a split second of awkward silence while the table processed my frank admission; my heart almost stopped for fear that they wouldn’t get the joke, and instead think I was confessing some sort of medical problem with Poor Kyle’s manly bits. Then, just as I was preparing to make a hasty retreat to the food table, my uncle started to chuckle. And then laugh. And then roar. Soon, the entire table was positively in stitches. I sighed in relief, let loose a little giggle, and then I left anyway to change the underoos I had soiled while waiting for them to catch on.
It was a crowning jewel in my sparsely decorated collection of clever and witty moments.
Forgive me for bragging, but I know it is unlikely to ever happen again. I have to soak it in while the glory is still fresh in my mind.
I am not pregnant. I don’t need a pee stick to tell me that.
This has been a public service announcement.
Thank you and goodbye.
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