The day I wanted to hit an old lady

Today, I am 6 months pregnant. At least, the doctor has declared that with 2-3% certainty that I will give birth in exactly 3 months (October 18th, in case anyone's counting). Which, as far as I can tell, makes today as good a day as any to share some of the... colorful? surprising? shit-tacular? things I have heard from people (mostly, but not all, strangers) about the now very obvious fact that I am growing a human.

When I was 11 weeks pregnant, a coworker said "I can see you've already lost your waistline." I was too shocked to say anything in return (plus, I was wearing a uniform at the time, which will disappear anyone's waistline faster than you can say "man pants"), but I did manage to flip her a double bird.

More recently, a grocery store employee called me a watermelon smuggler. I hadn't slept well the night before, so all she got was a blank stare until my hubby explained to me what the hell she was talking about. And by then we were out of the produce section.

Another woman asked me when I was due. Because I was in a (relatively) good mood, I leaned my shoulders back, put a hand on either side of my belly, and responded with a question of my own: "how could you tell?" I don't know why that made her uncomfortable, but it did.

This past weekend was my personal favorite (so far; I'm sure I'll need to do a follow-up between now and mid-October). At an event held by a community group I belong to, an old lady came up to me after our group leader made a speech identifying all the group members. She said, "When the leader said you were the 'member at large' I almost started laughing out loud." I wanted to hit her.

Now, you may be wondering: what is the moral of this collection of stories? There are probably several. For starters, people can be super insensitive. And men don't give a shit about how pregnant women look, only other women do. I'm sure there are others, but I'll leave those to your imagination. It's time for me to brush my teeth and try to fall asleep while being smacked around by, apparently, a watermelon I stole from the grocery store.