This is a post I wrote while working at my other life-draining big bank corporate job at Storgan Manly (name of company has been changed to protect their reputation). If you are/were a pregnant lady, get ready to be offended.
-B
She was so beautiful. I used to walk by her cubicle every day just to hear her voice and see her smile. She was like a Latina princess. She had the body of a goddess and the face of an angel. She smelled like flowers. She used to make my day. But one day, all that changed. She was no longer made up of sugar and spice and everything nice. Instead, she smelled like piss and shit, and acted like a bitch. At first, I couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. However, as the days progressed, I noticed that her belly began bulging. After her stomach became bulbous enough to be unmistakable, I dropped onto my knees and screamed at the skies, "Why lord, why!? Oh why did she have to get pregnant!?" She stopped wearing makeup, and every day she became louder, bitchier and uglier. After a while, she disappeared into the land of maternity leave, and the Spanish princess I once knew became but a bittersweet memory.
I frantically looked around at the cubicles surrounding my cubicle and started making a quick head count. "One, two, three, four, holy shit five! Five fucking pregnant hippos!" It was like a movie, "Attack of the Pregnant Ladies". I’d hold up a chocolate bar and they'd all charge my cube like a raging stampede of hungry hungry hippos. I wondered why there were so many pregnant ladies at the same time and my theory was that it was because it was currently winter so they probably got pregnant late fall. This would be perfect for a summer baby, a time when the baby had the least chance of getting sick, or any other complications at birth. But others told me I was wrong and told me it was because during late fall, everyone just wanted to stay indoors and fuck. It was too cold to go out and do anything else.
I made imaginary names for the pregnant hippos, and the most feared of them all was Ogre. Ogre’s upper body was twice the size of her stubbly legs, she was approximately six foot three, and she must've weighed two hundred and eighty pounds pre pregnancy. She spoke loudly on the phone all the time and whenever she got angry, her monstrously enormous head would turn red, and she would grunt loudly. The strange thing is her boyfriend. According to the pictures all over her desk, he was approximately five foot nine, and a hundred and eighty pounds. He also looked like a normal guy. The mental image of her crushing him, forcing him to impregnate her sends the most turbulent chills down my spine, and I pray for this man. I hear her yelling at him on the phone, and others who know ogre tell me that her boyfriend's a quiet nice guy. Lord have mercy on you poor sir.
The wicked witch of the west wing whispers wishes within her womb. She whispers into her belly button, "Please be a girl. I already have a boy so please be a girl." She walks around and says matter of factly to the twin blondes, "Oh I know it's going to be a girl because she's kicking a lot more than my son did. They say if it kicks more..." and yadda yadda yadda, the reasons go on and on. I secretly hex her womb and wish it to be another boy. One of the twin blondes sits right next to me so I get to hear all the baby talk I can take. They speak of how post pregnancy sex compares to pre pregnancy sex. They talk about how the baby kicks the bladder, and pee almost gushes out. I used to think a c-section was a part of a classroom reserved for only mediocre students. I pretend to ignore the extremely offensive discussions, and quietly fill my trashcan with vomit. In between these absurdly disgusting discussions, the twin blonde who sits next to me asks me questions. "Hey, I’m trying to open up this web page, but I already have another web page open. How do I do it?" I walk over to her desk and double click the internet explorer icon. Another internet explorer window opens. "Oh my God! That’s amazing B! Now I have two internet explorers open! You’re a genius!" I almost start crying at the stupidity of it all, but instead, I just say, "Thanks" and walk back to my desk.
The wicked witch of the west wing walks while waving. "Goodbye" she says to us all, and I reply, "Have a pregnant day! I mean... have a pleasant day!" She walks over to me with steam coming out of her hormone-infested ears and punts me to the other side of the room, from cube a1 to cube d8. Well, I'm exaggerating, we don't assign letters and numbers to the cubes, and I just said it to illustrate how far my body was actually projected. The ogre walks over to me and sits on me until I say, "uncle." I cry the whole way home.
All day I’d listen to these women vomiting, talking about what they can no longer eat, getting into detail about the anatomy of their own bodies, and crying out of nowhere. I’d be comforted by the fact that a few aisles down there were others who shared my suffering. I walk over to the west wing and hand the witch a water. Her head is down, so I knock on her desk. She looks up at me with tears running down her face. I freeze up, and run away. I tap the twin blonde who sits near my desk and whisper, "The witch is crying. The water might make her melt. You should help her." And so the twin blonde jumps up as bubbly as ever, and skips over to the west wing with a lollipop in her mouth. Meanwhile, I see the other hippos running as fast as their God given legs can carry them towards the bathroom, and I just know that they're holding vomit in their mouths as they run.
One by one, the hippos go to the land of maternity leave, and things quiet down in the office. The last one to go is the ogre, and she tortures everyone in her vicinity while she stays. For some reason the ogre is out to get me. I know this because when I first started working here, the ogre yelled out to me, "I’m out to get you sucka!" If I’m even a minute late to work, the ogre runs to my boss, jumps up and down and shakes the ground to get his attention. She then points towards my desk and chants, "He was late! He was late!" Then she runs to the bathroom to vomit again. She returns to her desk with a bright red smile glowering from her fangs and says, "Told ya I’d get ya sucka!" Then she grunts and runs to the bathroom once again.
The wicked witch of the west wing returns from oz and has a stupefied look on her face. "I had another boy." she says solemnly to the two twin blondes. They congratulate her regardless. Meanwhile I pretend not to hear, but lord forgive me, I crack a smile.
