You know how sometimes, before you go to bed, your mind wants to narrate to you in full detail the specifics of C-sections? GIRL, that happened to me just last night!
I know it’s been like, what, 12+ years since I was sliced and diced but I swear I still have incision pain.
“That’s probably why I can’t get rid of this little belly-bulge! It’s my body’s way of shielding me from the incision scar!” I cried hysterically to Henry, who mumbled, “You don’t even have a scar there” at the same time I was describing the scar as my Ouchie Strip.
“Really? Ouchie Strip?” Henry repeated with something in the middle of disgust and disappointment. Look, it was the first thing I could think of ok.
“CHILD BIRTH IS UNNATURAL!” I wailed in my next breath. “People should be born from….SEEDS!”
“So what, men should just walk around ejaculating in the dirt?” Henry asked.
“No, men won’t have anything to do with this. Fuck those jackasses. God will just drop the seeds from a cloud in Heaven,” I said slowly, thinking about it as I went on. “Farmer God.”
Then Henry reminded me that I don’t even believe in God, AND THAT’S WHY! GOD MAKES CRUEL THINGS HAPPEN TO US LIKE DONALD TRUMP AND CHILD BIRTH.
Henry fell asleep soon after this, leaving me to lie there, thinking about how MY ORGANS* WERE POTENTIALLY SCOOPED OUT OF MY BODY CAVITY AND DUMPED INTO A TROUGH, THANKS CHOOCH.
*(I didn’t even know that this could happen until 2 years ago when I was watching some BuzzFeed video about men going through fake child birth and they were like dry heaving when they found that out about C-sections and I was like, “WAIT, DID THAT HAPPEN TO ME TOO?!” and Henry was like, “Maybe your intestines?” And then I was dry-heaving too.)
(Seriously my insides feel bruised right now at the thought.)
(I just asked Henry about it again and he said, “I don’t know if they took anything out. They grabbed him by his big head and—”
“OH MY GOD!!” I shrieked, wincing.
“You brought it up!!” Henry spat.)
***
I was moderately annoyed when I first went out on my break today because I had to go to the dumb post office to mail my greeting cards since I have to stand there and watch the postal workers scan them in because I can’t trust them to always do their job properly! For it being such a bleak, rainy day today, people were fucking FRIENDLY out there on the streets of Pittsburgh. Like, people were actually SMILING at me when I would pause to let them pass me since sometimes the sidewalks don’t accommodate two people passing with umbrellas. And then I found that instead of stomping along with resting bitch face like usual, I was smiling too and then even more people were smiling back and I was like WHAT IS THIS SORCERY.
And then I started to CRY. Not like full-blown Hallmark TV movie sobbing but my eyes were for sure welling up and it BURNT, like Holy Water on the face of Satan.
(Or Saran, as I originally typed. You know, that motherfucker and his sinister kitchen wrap products. Hisssss.)
***
I think maybe I’m becoming weak and soft because basic things like humanity and compassion or whatever the fuck are starting to sneak through my wall of hate and I just don’t care anymore. Like, this one day last week, I was waiting for the trolley (i.e. how all of my Horror Stories start) when I heard this broad’s loud-ass mouth from many yards away (I forget how much of a distance a yard is but it was like distance between my desk and Wendy’s office away, which means nothing to you if you don’t work with me).
She had that terrible “smoking since 13” Pittsburgh trash voice that I loathe so much and immediately start prejudging, when I hear it LOOK I’M SORRY I’M NOT A FUCKING SAINT. But keep reading because maybe I’m changing, who knows.
Now, this broad had cut our distance in half and she was scream-talking to the fare attendant about the weather. As she shouted for him to have a good day, I began to pray to the trolley lords to help repel her from my area but apparently no fucking religion wants me because she pushed her stroller right up next to me and that’s when I realized I’ve seen her, but not heard her, on the trolley a few months ago.
Immediately, she started talking to me about her kid in the stroller who turned two in September, didn’t want to wear her gloves, and can count to 10 but skips 7 & 8 (Chooch always skipped 7 and said it was because he didn’t need it so I was softening up to this broad before I had a chance to stop myself). She was also a lot younger than her CDC Smoker Voice tv commercial made her out to be.
This broad was so chatty and usually I blanch at this but I robotically said things like “My son does not like to keep gloves on either” in an effort to balance the camaraderie. I even picked up the kid’s plastic Elmo phone one of the 18 she chucked it.
But then the T came and I sat five rows back her. She sat near the lady who looks like Phyllis from The Office aka the only person on the T who is ever charmed by that annoying family I sometimes bitch about on here. Immediately, this girl proceeded to tell Phyllis everything going on in her life, which is all pretty awful:
- she has an older daughter who is a super bad seed and was in Western Psych and basically sounds like she’s capable of murder except that she loves animals thank god so the therapists at Western Psych would use animal therapy on here
- her baby’s daddy sounds like a piece of shit
- she’s adopted and doesn’t have close family which is why she talks to strangers (GURL STOP)
- she had to check to see if she had homework due that day not because she’s in school but because she had to take weekly Bible classes in order for her rent to be paid — THAT WAS THE WORST PART!
Anyway there was so much more she was telling Phyllis and normally people flapping and wringing out their dirty laundry on pub-trans makes me so disgusted but this girl was like…still upbeat. Like, she wasn’t complaining or relaying any of this shit in a woe-is-me fashion, but she was being very matter-of-fact and conversational probably because that dumb boyfriend of hers doesn’t talk to her!!!
Look, this might have been another time in less than a week that my eyes spontaneously sprinkled. And when the trolley arrived at my stop, I went out of my way to walk by her just so I could tell her I hoped she has a good day. Henry said it’s like when the Grinch’s heart grew ten sizes or whatever. I guess.
Per-fucking-spective, bro.
If that girl can get off her ass and do the work expected of her to make her life better, in spite of all the hurdles and challenges in her way, then maybe I could at the very least take the T to work without acting like it’s the worst thing to ever happen to me…
Ok, baby steps, Erin. Tiny baby gnome steps.