The Scare

Wanna know how to get my blood pressure to set off alarms? Ask my wife, she has

perfected the process until it is nearly an art form. Last night I came home to

find her on the couch resting and complaining of having a headache, some nausea

then she went to bed early. This morning Dessy walks up to me right before I get

into the car, hands me some money and just before she starts to cry, asks me to

purchase a pregnancy test kit on the way home.

Time suddenly came to a screeching halt. The air became thick and I could smell

the acrid smell of urine and suddenly my socks were warm and wet. The only

sounds I could hear were the sounds of heartbeat increasing, and the tick, tock,

tick, tock from the clock on the wall. In the back of my mind I could hear a

faint cry of the infant to be.

After a minute or so I became aware that I was not breathing and had to force myself to inhale and mentally come back to the scene of this train wreck I call life.

I am in shock. I was willing to stay home with Dessy, but she did not want me to be late to work, so away I went, spending the entire hour long drive in deep thought.

I first thought about how I would be 70 years old when the little girl graduated high school. (Yeah, I imagined that it was a girl). Next I realized that I would have to take all the baby furniture that I had in the garage ready to sell back in the house. I started to worry about how I would need to stay awake for another year and a half. I calculated that I would now be paying an additional $4000 in diapers and wipes over the next two years.

I said goodbye to my dream of having a wide screen television and matching surround sound system.

But mostly I felt bad for my wife, who would be trapped for another 4 years before getting to really get to be free from 24 hour a day child care.

I was a nervous wreck at work. I tried to not be too conspicuous about my panic.

But as it turns out, other men know the smell of fear and down deep in some dark crevasse of innate knowledge they perceived what was going on. Then they all start grunting and offering advice. The least useful and most offensive tidbit offered was when one individual pulled a huge rusty set of scissors out of his desk and sneered, "Snip snip!"

The conversation then devolved into a discussion of everyone else's vasectomies and how hideously painful they were. After hearing the part about the cauterizing torch welding some poor guys bollocks to the operating table I decided to just head on over to the local farm supply store and get the ACME Goat Neutering device and do it myself. I figure it will be less pain and I can do it over the weekend in the back yard.

After sitting and sweating and worrying for a couple of hours my office phone rings. Dessy is calling, and I panic.  I wheeze out, "OH MY GOD are you in LABOR???" She said, “Don't worry hon, everything is fine. I just miscounted the days on my calendar.” I was dumbstruck. Relieved, but still. This was all because of a mistake in addition? My heart was still pounding. Dessy then said to me, "Is your heart racing? I bet that is the closest you have been to doing aerobics in years! Byeeee!" and she hung up.

Well, Dessy may not be pregnant, but I think I just had a cow.