Lt. Pete Mitchell himself couldn't have said it better.
It can be difficult to voice an opinion with your wife while you shop for your child if you happen to be under siege by a horde of women that are known for being a little hormonal. I have noticed that these women tend to align with one another out of a shared plight in the face of opposition (and by opposition, I of course mean the men that knocked them up). Walking around the store, my lovely wife would lend her critical opinion to a number of items: this stupid thing, that ugly dohicky, and that contraption-only-a-moron-would-use. Standing a few feet away, though, I could see other women who had just placed 1,247 of said items into their carts and were drooling over how adorable and functional they perceived them to be. Do they look to the offender? Nope; instead, it is her partner-in-crime who is the recipient of the pregnancy glare of death. After all, I was the reason she had to come to the store in the first place. These looks would of course lead to me not wanting to voice my opinions at all for fear of having my face melted off by the shady glances of pregnant passers-by. ...not sharing my opinion would lead to my own wife getting supremely annoyed with me because I "clearly didn't care enough". This is the lose-lose of being a man with a pregnant wife.
So obviously, I was observing a larger concentration of pregnant women in this store than out on the streets. My spidey-senses were tingling and telling me that I was basically in the middle of more estrogen than the loading dock at at NuvaRing manufacturing plant. Yup: like a high school graduate at a Florida Gators football tailgate, I stood out big time. "So how should I play this?", I thought to myself. I couldn't be too aloof, staring at the floor, hiding in corners and such: someone would call the cops. However, I couldn't be too gregarious and outgoing, because the other on-edge men would have assumed that I was hitting on their spouses and/or be looking for any reason to make egress and may have engaged me in fisticuffs. I decided to try and strike a happy balance, smiling shyly at all the pregnant people and nodding consolingly at all the male taggers-along. My other strategy was to also only look at products placed at eye-level, lest I be confused for someone oggling the natural impact that pregnancy has on a woman's <ahem> upper torso or <cough> lower back. HINT TO BABY PRODUCT MANUFACTURERS: if you want men to see something in the store, place it at or above 5'0" off the ground.
The other thing in the back of my head the entire time was that I needed to be careful on how I initiated conversation with anyone. As we all know, assuming anyone is pregnant without actually seeing some sort of arm or leg dangling from betwixt her thighs is essentially like playing Russian Roulette. About 2 months ago (so maybe, 5-6 months in), Jan had reached the point in her pregnancy where she thought everyone saw her as "getting fat" instead of "being pregnant". This was not helped by her coworkers, who upon learning of her pregnancy, thought they were complimenting her by saying, "Wow, you don't even look pregnant at all!" To my poor wife though, who was going through a phase where she was bringing home what I mistook to be some sort of rainproof covering for a mid-size dirigible (oops, they were actually "pregnancy underpants"), these platitudes were actually heard by her as "Oh, you're pregnant? Thank God, we were just about to put in a container-ship dock out back so you could get inside the building easier... tubby!" I recommend to anyone who is not currently pregnant (the only people with a free pass) that they henceforth live by the following guidelines:
^^This. This all day long.^^
The baby store isn't all bad, though. It is definitely a source of entertainment under the right circumstances. Early on in her pregnancy, Jan was lamenting the ambiguity of the size to which she may grow and was frustrated with the notion of how to purchase pregnancy pants (or as I affectionately refer to them, "Thanksgiving Pants"; see below).
Joey extols the virtues of a flexible waistline; see here for yourselves, mobile readers.
A lot of calculation and planning apparently went into the purchase of these pants: when will we need them? What season will it be? Will it be hot or cold outside? Will it be hot or cold inside? What if I buy these and I'm bigger than I planned? Will they match any of my festive tops? In order to help women navigate their way through this minefield of confusion, the baby stores have apparently put fake bumps into the dressing rooms, and women are encouraged to velcro these different-month-sized hemispheres onto their midsections and coo at their reflections in the mirror as they try on various clothing options. For a pregnant woman, this is essentially an opportunity to not only shop for clothing, but to literally glance into the future.
For a non-pregnant accompanist, this is as good a reason to contemplate jumping off of a roof as I've ever had before. Not only does a male get to experience the normal joys of being goaded into stepping cautiously through the female changing rooms so you can offer your insights into which pants look better (for the zillionth time, they all look the same), but BONUS: now you get the joys of seeing these identical pants with a series of fake pregnancy bumps, helping your wife imagine what she'll look like in a few months. From a scientific perspective, I have developed an equation that will help explain exactly how long this process will take.
Let 'a' = number of pairs of pants
Let 'b' = number of progressive month bumps
Let 'c' = amount of time in hours it feels like is actually passing as your spouse tries on pants
Therefore, (a) x (b) = (c), or length of perceived time-passing. Applied, we could say that your spouse wants to try on 4 pairs of pants, and the store has 4 bump sizes (6-9 months). This may seem like a simple 4x4 calculation; however, there is the previously unmentioned "pregnancy factor" that is added to the equation. Ergo, the new amount of time that it will feel like has passed while your wife tries on pregnancy pants can be calculated in a manner such as this:
( (a) x (b) ) x ( ∞ ) = c
'c' apparently also stands for "coffin," because it is quite likely that you will actually die in the store. I was even fortunate enough to have the changing rooms located near the Christmas display, where on a never-ending loop, on an out-of-reach television, at an ear-piercing volume level, was a 30-second trailer for the "Elf On A Shelf" DVD movie that now accompanies the holiday toy. Honestly, I don't actually have a problem with the toy and the new holiday tradition; I think people have been quite creative with some of the ways they've handled their elves (in both success and "elf on a shelf fails"; go ahead, Google it). If you don't believe me about this movie trailer when I tell you that it made life not worth living, though, go ahead and let it roll more than, say, 5 times in rapid succession and see if your ears haven't started bleeding:
That's just too much Christmas cheer to be on non-stop loop right there. Anyway, it's not all medieval torture tactics. There is fun to be had in the baby store; fun beyond touching everything, turning up the volume on all of the music-making bouncy chairs and switching the power off for the next unsuspecting parent, and carrying ridiculously large and/or goofy items around the store and leaving them in the wrong location. Jan's favorite game was "let's try out all the gliders," which I have to admit, really is top drawer.
Our biggest source of entertainment on one trip though was to take a picture of Jan wearing the 7-month pregnancy bump (she was all of about 9 weeks pregnant at the time) and send it to one of our few friends who knew she was pregnant, who had seen her about 2 weeks prior, and who happened to be an OB/GYN resident. The two of us would have had to pick our jaws up off the floor if we weren't already down there rolling around and laughing when the response from our dear friend came back, "Wow, so big! You know what you're having by now, right??" Apparently, even the best OB/GYN residents lose the ability to understand that one does not go from 7 weeks to 7 months overnight when they are just getting off of a 12+ hour shift. Still, though: really funny.
A-ha! I know a 7-week pregnancy when I see it!
Obviously, this dear friend knows that we were (and are) just teasing her out of love. ...but this should teach you an important lesson, ladies: when you see your lady-doctor, make sure they're well rested.
