"I didn't know I was pregnant..."

Wait.  Who, me?  Nah.  Not me.

 Anyway...
Here's the story:  I didn't teach over the summer, so I found a summer job waiting tables and bartending.  I found a gig within a 15 minute walk from my house and it worked out nicely.  For the most part.  I worked with a good group of people and the manager was either 22 or 23 -- I can't remember -- and there was a birthday celebrated over the summer, but you get the idea.  She was really sweet when I first started and I came to realize that she wasn't 100% real.  She was overly smiley and talked in a high pitched voice to the customers and said "mmHMMM!" and "uh HUHH!" and "you BET!" in a squeaky, excited tone.  Blech.

But!  Since she was my manager (eye roll) I was pleasant and nice and accommodating.  She wasn't always so nice.  I discovered this when she started talking about fellow co-workers behind their backs.  I think she was annoyed when I didn't share her opinions and join in.  I thought, "if she talks about these people like this, I can only imagine what she says about me when I'm not around."  When I first decided to take this job, John was concerned.  Concerned about my general well-being and overall mental health.  He was a chef for most of his life and he understands the restaurant business.  The front of the house staff has to deal with all sorts of crap from customers and he said he didn't want me to go through the summer frustrated and waiting on rude people.   I hadn't waited tables or bartended in seven years. Would it be worth it?  Well, at the end of the summer I realized that the customers were (mostly) amazing.  It was the manager and the owner I could have done without.  I could write about many, many issues but I'm trying to keep myself on track here (deep breath).  OK.

One day we're working a dinner shift together.  The place was pretty small, so there were only two servers on a dinner shift.  It was usually pretty slow at the beginning of the shift and then gradually (or sometimes not so gradually) got busier as the night wore on.  We were talking and she tells me that she worked a lunch shift the day before and she couldn't believe that a customer asked her when she was due.  She went on and on and on that yes, she has a belly, but REALLY?!?  Pregnant?!?

•      Let me explain her body type: big breasts, VERY narrow, non-existent hips and a belly.  I have known women that have this same shape and they were NOT pregnant.  They just carried all their weight in their gut.

I sympathized with her and told her a story of wearing a big, shapeless dress on an incredibly hot summer afternoon when a man complimented me on my maternity dress.  I wasn't flattered.  In a woman's mind, if someone thinks she is pregnant, and she's not, it translates as being seen as fat.  Not so nice.  She tells me that it "was a woman.  A WOMAN that said this to me.  What an insult! Especially from another woman! Couldn't she tell that I AM NOT PREGNANT?!?"   OK. Sure.

Over the course of the summer, this must have happened to her five or six times.  That I knew of.  In the mean time, she would be really nice, then really nasty.  I remember once at the beginning of a Saturday night dinner shift she was in a particularly foul mood and she brought the whole place down.  The energy of the whole restaurant was depressing.  I was thankful that I was in the bar that night, but she kept coming over to bitch about someone or something.  Yeash.

About a week or two after I stopped working there and started teaching again, I received a text from a fellow co-worker of the restaurant.  It said, "Xxxxx had a baby."  (Name withheld to protect the stupid!)  I stared at my phone in disbelief.  She must have texted the wrong number.  I only know ONE person by that name.  Whaaaaa??  I texted back, "what??" and it was confirmed.  I also heard about it through the grapevine from other people.  The conversation would always end with them saying, "Can you believe it??"  At first, no, I couldn't.  Then...I wasn't so sure.  I thought maybe that she was hiding it from everyone -- for whatever reason.  Or that she was in denial.  Denial can be pretty powerful, and one can certainly trick their brain in thinking th....Oh forget that!  Did she really NOT KNOW?  

I've never been pregnant in my life, but here's a perfectly reasonable (in my mind) question to ask:

HOW OUT OF TOUCH DOES A WOMAN HAVE TO BE WITH HER BODY TO NOT KNOW SHE IS PREGNANT?!?!?!???

And this is what really get me about this: she smoked.  All the time.  Multiple cigarette breaks during a shift.  God knows how many when she wasn't working.  She drank as well.  She even went on a DIET to lose some of her belly.  Yep.  For real.  I still to this day don't know the answer to the question if she really didn't know or not -- because I haven't seen her since she gave birth to her (hopefully healthy) bundle of joy.  But I have a feeling that if I were to ever see her again I wouldn't be able to hide the disgust and confusion that wells up inside me whenever I think of this.

I realize there is a television show dedicated to this very topic of "I didn't know I was pregnant" and that there are medical doctors that can explain why and how this happens to some women .  Like I said, I've never been pregnant, but I think this show and this story are prime examples of how out of touch women have become with their bodies...and it's very sad.