Two Fights in Two Days

When I had braces at 13, my orthodontist Dr. Tenenbaum would twist the little screws on my teeth a tiny bit on each visit over two years instead of jacking them up to 11 all at once, presumably to prevent excruciating pain. Nice man, that Dr. Tenenbaum.

Conversely, my pelvis felt like separated itself overnight on Monday.

It turns out it felt like it did, because it did. I can blame relaxin, a hormone released to make ligaments loosey goosey for the baby's luge run. I guess my body orthodontist doesn't use the same technique as Dr. Tenenbaum. Maybe it's because I don't have two years to work with, perhaps not even two weeks or two days. It's up to baby. At any rate, now I walk like I can't, because my legs certainly can't be very well attached to their sockets.

Thus, for the purpose of this post, please picture a wobbly-legged woman smuggling a men's NBA over-inflated but regulation-sized basketball under her coat. That's me. Now picture me yesterday, fresh off the 5 train waddling my way through Grand Central for my now weekly visit with my obstetrician. As I passed Papyrus, the stationery store, I noticed a youngish woman pushing one end of a valet cart stacked with recyclable boxes. She had a helper in tow who was carrying a garbage bag. At some point during my waddle, I heard in a very bitchy Valley Girl tone, "Excuse me!"

In New York, we're unofficially trained to ignore people, so natrually, I ignored this.

"ExCUSE me!"

Certainly this person couldn't be talking to me.

And a third time, "EXCUSE ME!"

At this point, I assumed I dropped something, so I turned to see not someone running up to me with my wallet--or my uterus--but the woman with the cart and the helper, right behind me, totally up my ass. Really? Grand Central is such a tiny place that my path is the only one to wheel your shit around in? Is it not called GRAND Central for a reason? Her "excuse me" was essentially a "Beep beep!" for me to get out of the way, and not a friendly "Beep beep" which wouldn't have mattered anyhow. My fuse is short these days. I responded in kind at the top of my lungs with, "I'M EIGHT AND A HALF MONTHS PREGNANT, AND YOU'RE A BITCH!" As she passed, she had no comment, obviously.

That was yesterday. This morning, I had another adventure. I walked onto the 6 train and stood in front of two occupied seats in the corner. A teenage girl and a man in his 20's. Both saw me, my belly, and quickly closed their eyes to pretend they were sleeping. I felt like tapping the one chick on the shoulder to ask her how her fake nap was going, but I was more concerned with monitoring the rest of the train as we approached the next stop to see if any seats would open up. One did, and I approached it, as fast as I could waddle.

I wasn't fast enough.

A tall 30-something hipster dude with Peter Jackson hair and a stupid trendy raincoat started his descent into the seat. Before his fat ass could touch the plastic, I tapped him with, "May I sit down?"

"Umm...But I was going to sit down," he said incredulously, snarkily, totally prepared for a confrontation.

I paused.

"Are you also 8.5 months pregnant?"

"OH! So sorry, I didn't notice. Yeah, sorry about that. And I get really mad when people don't give up their seats and yeah, sorry..." his voice trailing off as he stood in front of his lady friend whom he was hoping to sit next to.

"Thanks," I quipped, as I whipped out my copy of Pregnancy & Newborn. Needless to say, the small talk between him and his lady friend was awkward at best. On their way off the train to catch the express, he tapped my knee with another apology, "I'm really sorry about that. Have a great day."

"Yeah. Thanks." I wanted to then say to his lady friend, "He's a keeper!" in the most sarcastic tone I could muster (my specialty). Fighting a petite woman who politely asks for a subway seat you know you're only using for two more stops? Then to give it up only when I tell you I'm with child? I've got to provide a doctor's note? A-hole.

I hope his trench got caught in the subway doors trying to squeeze his ass onto the 4Train and his body was violently dragged down the platform ending with a big splatter of brain matter and Peter Jackson hair, but it probably didn't.

I guess I'll have to wait for him to develop an enlarged prostate.

New Emergencies in the New Economy

Florida woman goes cuckoo for mass-produced, deep-fried, chicken bits and calls 911.

According to the 911 transcript, Latreasa Goodman said,

"The manager just took my money and won't give me my money back, trying to make me get something off the menu that I don't want. I ordered chicken nuggets. They don't have chicken nuggets, and so I told her, 'Just give me my money back,' and she tells me I have to pick something else off the menu. She is not going to give me my money back, and she don't have the right to take my money."

"This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one. This is an emergency."

Yesterday's A-Hole of the Day-Hole

Commuting back from a long holiday weekend spent in 3 states (something unheard of 100 years ago) is never a glamorous or even remotely pleasant task, but there are people in this world who can make it so, sooo, sooooo much more horrible than it has to be. Vote for your favorite today!

A-hole #1: The line for the restroom at a Connecticut Rest Stop was snaked nearly out the lobby, yet a broad was using stall #2 (of a measly 6) as her private office to make a loud phone call. In Chinese. As I neared the front of the line, I heard other broads hissing and seething with anger, "Somebody should knock on the door. That's not right!" When I got into Stall #1, checked underneath the partition to see what she was doing in there to give her the benefit of the doubt, and sure enough, there was no sitting, only standing and blah-blah-blahing. I took that opportunity to throw a nice big wad of fresh toilet paper under the partition which landed on her shoe. And another wad over, for good measure. That seemed to free up the stall quickly.

A-hole #2: My latecomer seatmate on the MetroNorth Railroad who busted an otherwise pleasant train ride with the following:

• Massive bags a-plenty from a shopping trip to Buy Buy Baby or some crap like that.
• Screeching constantly (from the time she approached to the time she got off) on her bluetooth earpiece in a foreign language so loudly and unapologetically I was simply beside myself--except I was beside her. The one-way conversation sounded like this: "BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG," etc...
• Ruffling and crumpling with plastic bags inside of her purse for candy and settling on a lollypop. Slurp slurp slurp slurp slurp.
• Eating pistachio nuts out of an entirely different crumply rumply bag and throwing the shells on the floor (ie: my lap and my luggage)
• Fumbling through her cosmetic bag and brushing hair. Into my face.
• Applying various makeups to her grill piece while elbowing me in my grill piece.
• Instead of saying something to this horrible human being about her 2000 revolting violations of etiquette, I chose my usual entirely ineffective passive aggressive route of staring at her an inch from her face with the dirtiest, most incredulous look I could muster and plugging my ears with my forefingers.

The End.