The Pregnancy Card

I haven't really pulled the "pregnancy card." You know, the one where I simply can't walk the dog...you see, I'm pregnant. Or Could you please lift this bag of cotton balls for me? You see, I'm pregnant... Barring a few irrational over-reactions to hiccups in our on-going kitchen remodel "I am NOT going to shop for tile! Isn't this why we're paying them???!!!!," and one tantrum-like meltdown regarding buying lighting fixtures (a long story, for a different time), I've really tried to keep my hormonal drama out of the lives of those around me.

I thought I was being "easy," but perhaps that was the wrong attitude to take, since I was woefully unprepared for what happened today. This morning, driving from my doctor's appointment to work, I was unceremoniously turned away from the garage closest to my office. Apparently, it was full. "But I'm pregnant!" I protested, as a line of cars filled with unhappy drivers formed behind me. This was met with an impatient point of the finger, and a declaration of "Other parking garage. We're full." Apparently, the discussion was over.

I drove, duly reprimanded and tail tucked between my legs, over to the "other" parking structure, that has the deceivingly friendly name of "Lemongrove." It may as well be in Siberia. Seriously, whoever built this garage did it with the sole intent of making it as distant as possible from any place I may actually need to be.

As I stalked angrily the 10 miles from garage to office, I cycled through several trains of thought:

1) If I go into premature labor, I am SO suing the garage attendants. Well, at least we'll be set financially.

2) If I DON'T go into premature labor, and this (inevitably) happens again, I will SO run down the barricade at the local garage, and claim pregnancy-related hormonal instability. I tried to warn them.

Rinse, repeat. Being as I was walking from Siberia, I got to go back and forth between these two thoughts quite a number of times.

Every cloud is not without its silver lining, however. Approaching my office building, I saw pretty much the entire staff standing outside, exclaiming random things about how we were going to die. It seems that in my focused irritation, I had completely missed a 5.4 earthquake that had rocked Los Angeles.