wonder bump

Friday, nov. 6, 2009   |   0 comments

Back when I was about eight months pregnant, we needed the city to sign off on some of plans we had submitted for our ultra ambitious, cliched “pregnant lady in nesting mode” kitchen remodel. The planning department had been sitting on the paperwork for over a month, and we were getting frantic — any delay meant we were in danger of losing our insanely slender-margin-ed race against time to get into the house before the baby arrived.

So I put on my green maternity dress, the one that made me look extra specially pregnant…

…and I waddled down to the city offices.

Me: “Hi, I’m here to pick up our plans?”

Lady behind the desk, after typing in my information: “I’m sorry, they aren’t ready yet.”

Me: “Is there anything I can do to speed things up? We’ve been waiting over a month, and we need those plans signed before we can move into our house. Meanwhile we’re paying both the mortgage and rent, money we can’t really afford to waste, seeing as [pointing at gigantic bump] we’ve got a baby on the way…”

Lady: “We’re still waiting on a signature, and the man who needs to sign it isn’t in the office yet.”

Me, sweetly: “I can wait.”

Lady: “He won’t be here for at least an hour. Maybe two.”

Me: “That’s fine. I’ll wait.”

She shot me a nervous look as I lowered myself into a seat at the counter, closed my eyes, cupped my belly, and started practicing my breathing exercises, slowly and audibly.

A few minutes passed, then the lady placed a quiet call, her hand cupped over her mouth. Moments later a man came out from the offices in back, I’m pretty sure he was the head of the whole operation.

Honcho: “Let’s see…it’s been awhile since I’ve done this. Now where do I sign?”

And just like that, our planning woes were solved. All thanks to the mighty power of the wonder bump!

Now we’re looking down the barrel of our big final inspection, and we could really use some magic on our side. But sadly I’ve lost my baby stomach…more or less. Perhaps it’s time to invest in a prosthetic pregnancy belly?