I'm a Moron
I've become "that person" I've always warned other of. I asked a woman who wasn't pregnant when she was due.
Could there really be anything worse? I'd met her two seconds before - she had come to the beach with a group of my friends, and she looked suspiciously round in her two piece bathing suit. "So when does #4 show up?" I asked with a smile.
She looked at her other three children playing in the sand and said with a scowl, "not for a while I hope."
And that was the end of her interest in me. I was wondering why she didn't give me an exact date - then it hit me, she probably wasn't pregnant at all. A while later I asked my friend if this lady was pregnant and she confirmed that there was absolutely no nurturing activities going on in that particular uterus.
What do you do to amend such an egregious faux paus? I decided to do nothing. To apologize would necessitate having to talk about it more and I'm sure this woman just wanted to throw me out into the ocean with concrete slippers, not have a friendly chat. I still don't understand what possessed me to ask. In my pathetic defense, she was Mormon which gives her a 95% chance of being pregnant regardless of the shape of her tummy. Regardless, I've always vowed not to ask a woman if she was expecting until I could hear the baby crying on the birthing table. And even then, probably not. So many of my friends have been burned by this question. But I asked it.
I must be punished. Any ideas?
Comments
Im not really into punishment- just learning the hard way... apparently!
Her response?
"I'm not pregnant, Heather. I'm just fat."
I stuttered and stammered and said, "But, I heard you talk about the shower. What was the shower for?"
"Bobby and I are getting married next week."
Oh. So the man she had been living with for 2 years, her children's "new dad" was not her husband, but her boyfriend. So then I had no choice but to blubber, "Oh, um, congratulations! I thought you were already married" which probably made things worse. AFter all, who I am to foist upon her my own conservative assumptions about dads and marriage?
Yeah, she and I didn't talk much after that.
If someone said this to me I would feed on that one statement for years. She may be doing that right now.
You are one of the funniest, clever, witty women I know. Find someway to make her laugh and explain that you were a clod and that if the situation were reversed you would want to someone to hit you over and over with a shopping cart or whatever.
I agree with s'mee. If you see this woman often, say something. And then just be aware of it and try not to insert that foot too often into one's mouth. :] If someone is expecting, they will tell people when they want others to know.
Michelle, I'm sorry you had to be one of the many victims of tactless wonders such as myself.
Your penance will be gently smiling and smashing all irate feelings the next time asks if you're pregnant and you're not ;)
I once asked someone in our Ann Arbor ward this (and believe me, it is even worse coming from a guy) and she wasn't. *GASP* (I NEVER ask that question any more and should have known better than to ask it then.)
Luckily, I quickly covered my tracks with the little white lie that I had "heard" otherwise, though I couldn't believe it looking at her (OK, two white lies, since I hadn't heard that and she did actually look pregnant)...