It Takes a Village

I knew that pregnancy was an obvious condition, but I was unaware that most people consider it a community project.

I was working on something (I forget what, but the key is that I was working, because I was at work) and a co-worker came into my office to hand me a "hilarious" book which she found very helpful and very funny and even now, she was giggling as she handed it to me. It is called The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy: Or Everything Your Doctor Won't Tell You, and it is just that, everything you would discuss with your Girlfriends, if you had Girlfriends, which I don't. And, having glanced at this book, I'm glad that I don't. Nosey busybodies. But I accepted the book with good grace and thanked the woman profusely, who then proceeded to stand in my doorway for fifteen minutes and offer random bits of advice, from bottle feeding to the benefits of co-sleeping, all without my having to say a word. She ended by offering to give me her entire five year collection of Child Magazine. I asked her to let me borrow just one.

Having handled that burst of well-intended but unsolicited advice, I went about my work-day. An hour later I received a phone call from a nice but rather dull woman who works part-time downstairs. I hardly know her, but she was calling me from home to offer me her daughter's entire collection of maternity wear. "I know you've got a male colleague sitting with you there," she said, "So you can just say yes or no. We'll keep it low-key." Bewildered at both the offer and the secrecy, I said yes. When I hung up I started laughing hysterically, which got my (male) co-worker's attention. "What's funny?" he asked.

I tried to explain that I found all the generosity extremely funny, but he didn't really get it.