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Thursday, December 1, 2011

I am pregnant...hear me whimper

Oh good Lord, NO! I am NOT pregnant.

But I was at the time.

I was home on maternity leave - bed rest - restricted activity - whatever you want to call it. This was thirteen years ago and my chicklets were still a twinkle in my eye and a large lump in my abdomen.

I needed to get out of the house. The doctor had advised I go to the Y and swim. After trying it just once, I was hooked. These little boogers put so much strain on my bod, the effect of being pseudo-weightless even while completely and mortifyingly LARGE in the torso? Hea. Ven. Ly. Heavenly. Absolutely pure, inexplicable heaven.

Who cared that I got to know all of the lifeguards by name (due to the number of contractions I'd have while halfway through the deep end of the pool). Who cared that I'd swim the slooooooowest laps in the world (because of course, this was only allowed during lap swim, and I wasn't allowed to float, I had to SWIM)! Who cared that I'd stay in the water until the last possible second and then HEAVE myself out of the water to blunder to the bathroom to relieve my increasingly stressed bladder. Not me.

The Y saved my sanity.

Except...this one time...

I grabbed my gear. Grabbed my purse. Grabbed my swimsuit. Grabbed my towel. Grabbed everything!

Except the keys.

8.5 months pregnant with twins. And I'm locked out of my house.

Of course, this is pre-commonly-accessible-mobile-phone days, so I didn't have a phone. Or a key. I couldn't leave the house, because I didn't have a car key. But I couldn't get in the house, either.

So I scanned the house. I knew the gates were locked. The little crappers in the neighborhood opened the gates and let our dogs loose if we left the the gates unlocked. But I checked anyway. And I was right. They were locked. Safe and snug were my doggies - behind the gates - inside the house - locked up tight. Yep, I was thorough. Thoroughly stuck. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get over the ding-dang fence.

So...went to the guest room window (we lived in a ranch-style-house at the time). Locked.

Went to the chix soon-to-be-bedroom window. Locked.

Went to the living room window. Locked.

Like I could heave myself up into an open window? Even if the window was open, the lower ledge was boob-height. This monstrous belly sticking out in front of me? Leaving me with less than one-inch of lap? How freaking ridiculous was I?!?

Apparently not ridiculous enough.

After being outside - in a coat because it's April after all - in Indiana - where snow is still a possibility in May - for roughly TWO HOURS and seeing no neighbors I know (or want to know?) I decided to hoof it down to a house where I see activity. Oh yeah, I got to tell my sob story to someone I don't even know.
This was NOT the lovely water I had imagined, remembered, longed for. Definitely not.

Turns out, after explaining my freakingly fantastic story to the person who answered the door, they don't live there. They're "watching" the house for their friend while their friend's windows are being installed. And then I got to explain the whole goofball story AGAIN to this random neighbor, whom I've never met, over the phone. And they graciously (grudgingly?) gave me permission to use their phone.

So I called my two neighbors who lived on either side of me. Only one had a key to my house. But neither was home (which I already knew). And of course, since I didn't carry a planner (hello, maternity leave? bed rest? 1998? thanks, glad you're still with me!), I didn't know how else to contact them.

I called my husband on HIS mobile phone. But he was working "in the field" so didn't know or even hear that I called.

Poop. Back to waiting on my front steps for Ironman to hopefully show up...sometime before dark?

Wait wait wait. Bored bored bored.

Except, about 30 minutes later, one of the workers from the pseudo-neighbor's house came down. I felt a little weird. Here's me and my monstro-pregnant belly, hanging out on my front steps because I have nowhere else to go, and here's this strange guy walking down the street.

::gulp::

He said he'd heard my whole situation and wanted to see if he could help me.

::gulp:: Oh screw it.

Cue Hallelujah Chorus!

errrrrr, well, maybe.

I explained the window thing - yep, I was paranoid enough to have locked ALL of my windows in my house. And the gates. And yes, the front door. But...there was a chance I'd forgotten to lock the back door. The one that leads out into the padlocked back yard. Where I couldn't get my pregnant belly. Because I couldn't climb the fence. Because I was uber-pregnant. With twins.

So random pseudo-stranger offered to check.

And then he hopped the fence. Easy as pie. (and yes, I could do it now - because I'm no longer monstro-the-whale)

Pseudo Stranger: "Um, ma'am?"

Me: "Yes?"

PS: "Um, your windows are locked back here. Do you want me to check your door?"

Me: "Yes, PLEASE!" (because at this point, though I had used the bathroom at pseudo-neighbor's house, I was desperate, people! I reallllllly needed to use it AGAIN)

PS: "Um, ma'am?"

Me: wriggling nervously, trying not to wet my pants "Yes?"

PS: walks around the corner of the house to the gate and says, "Um, ma'am, the back door is unlocked. What do you want me to do?"

Me: "oh my gosh, just walk in. Just walk in. When you walk in, you'll be in the laundry room. Turn left and the front door will be straight ahead of you!"

PS: "Are you sure?"

Me: attempting to hold onto my dignity "Yes, whatever you need to do, just please, thank you, please go straight through."

And he did.



And THAT is how I didn't escape to the Y. Because after all of that, the chicklets and I needed a bathroom. And a nap.



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