Last Friday, I received some news that on its face was pretty unremarkable, but upon further explanation, was a rather stunning revelation. Sis, my co-worker, had just hung up her cell phone after a conversation with her mom, who is also Boss’ mom. Sis reported that her mom had just left Boss’ and Zilla’s, where she had been holding baby Speedway, their adorable and precious progeny.
You might remember that Boss’ mom had been one of the chosen two who were able to gain admission to Zilla’s room during her labor and delivery at the hospital, with the exception of the brief intercessory visit by the transient pastor and his wife. I had made the reckless assumption that at least the grandmothers had been able to satisfy their newborn baby fixes and had been able to enjoy their new grandson at will. On the contrary. This day, August 21, three weeks after the birth, was the very FIRST time Boss’ mom had been able to even lay a finger on that baby. Indeed, it was the very first time ANYONE on Boss’ side of the family (except Boss himself) had been able to touch the baby. And not only can Boss’ family not touch the baby, they are not welcome to enter Boss and Zilla’s house, either. After the solitary visit a couple of weeks ago at the end of which nephew got stiff-armed by Zilla for making an illegal approach too near the babe, Zilla has declared a moratorium on all visits until further notice. That visit, if you remember, was the first and only time any of them had been in the same room with the baby. Well, party’s over.
As for Zilla’s side of the family? Zilla’s mom landed herself in the hospital last Thursday. Her couple of weeks of live-in helping the new mom climaxed with some sort of health crisis and collapse. The doctors at first thought it was a stroke, then her heart. Testing came up clean in spite of her symptoms, so they finally pinned the cause on anxiety and an allergic reaction. Okay, two weeks of dealing with Zilla, meeting her demands, yet not being able to touch or draw too near her new grandson. Anxiety? Ya think???? And I’m not surprised she broke out in a mass of hives along with the chest pain, tremors and other neurological issues. Poor Zilla’s mom.
I’d like to wager that Zilla’s mom isn’t the only one close to the situation that is ready to dissolve in paroxysms. When I got the new corporate cell bill and was going over it, I saw a number I recognized. Over and over and over. Looks like Zilla’s been developing synergy with the pediatrician’s office. At least 15 minutes at a time, often several times per day. Bet they love that; an opportunity to both care for their patient AND work on their patience.
Boss himself has been strangely mum about the whole baby/parenthood thing. He will answer a direct question about Zilla or the baby, but rarely volunteers anything. No more effusive commentary than if he’d bought a new mattress, or switched toothpastes. “They’re doing fine,” is about all you can wrench out of him. We got more of a descriptive rundown about his grass mowing over the weekend than I’ve heard the last THREE weeks about that baby. No accounts of sleepy smiles and yawns, or how much he eats, or middle-of-the-night diaper changes. Nada. I wonder if Boss, not having a lot of previous experience with babies, expected his son to “do” something spectacular, even as a newborn, and is kind of disconcerted that Isaac just lies there.
Isaac. Yep, baby Speedway’s name is Isaac. Boss predicted this soon after they discovered the baby’s gender, claiming to have settled upon the moniker through supernatural means. In other words, he dreamed it. Problem was, Zilla ALSO had an auspiciously chosen name for the baby, and it WASN’T Isaac. She had already chosen paint for the nursery, picked a bedding set and begun to purchase decorations to match the name, so THAT WAS IT. Name decision made. Zilla intended for the baby to be a namesake of a different hero of the faith; one who built an ark, and cared for two of every kind of creature and rode out a flood. The baby’s room was going to resemble the inside of an ark, right down to the animal pairs.
All right, so if she had liked the name Daniel, would the nursery have looked like a lion’s den? Would little Jonah have been sentenced to lodge in the belly of a fish? Baby Adam might have really enjoyed the Garden of Eden… but would tiny Paul have appreciated peering through the bars of the crib at his room fashioned like a prison? I dunno. Maybe I’m being too picky, but I think decorating a nursery to match the biblical history of your child’s name – not just the name posted somewhere IN the nursery mind you, which I’m okay with, but the all-embracing décor – is a little creeeeepy. I guess I’m REALLY glad she didn’t pick the name Stephen… or Samson. Room decorations to go with those could have probably wreaked psychological havoc.
Anyhow, the months went by while Zilla was pregnant and she insisted that SHE had picked the baby’s name. Boss was just as sure – even MORE sure, if that’s possible – that HE had named the baby. There was no compromise for either of them. I knew better than to ask Zilla directly myself, but whenever some unsuspecting soul brought the subject up with Boss, he’d say that yes, the baby had a name. Then he’d admit the fact that Zilla had chosen a different name, and then he’d LAUGH (I thought, kind of uncharitably) and basically say that Zilla had a little bit to learn. Wow. Because he KNEW what the baby’s name was. And HER name for the baby just wouldn’t suit.
As the due date neared, neither Boss nor Zilla were budging and if anyone called attention to the baby’s possible name, Boss visibly tensed and would say only that they were seeking heavenly guidance on the matter. They reportedly sought heavenly guidance pretty much continuously for four months. After the birth, when well-wishers and family asked what the baby would be called, Boss and Zilla were STILL seeking heavenly guidance. In fact, they sequestered themselves in Zilla’s hospital room alone the whole afternoon following the baby’s birth seeking heavenly guidance.
Family members reported staking a watch reminiscent of keeping an eye on the smoke from the chimney of the Vatican when the cardinals are voting for a new pope. Not being able to gain admittance to visit the couple or the baby, yet continuing to post a strong and doggedly faithful presence in the waiting room of the hospital because Boss “is family,” they made a deal with the nurses to change the label placard on the bassinette in the nursery AS SOON as they could wheedle the name out of the parents. No such luck. The child remained Baby XXXXX for his entire stay. Boss and Zilla from all accounts, continued to seek periodic heavenly guidance for two full days, right up until the time the paperwork had to be filled out in order to be discharged from the hospital, at which time they either received a celestial answer or Boss cut some kind of earthly deal with Zilla. They named the baby Isaac.
We had a kind of informal poll going on at work regarding who we thought would win the battle of the names. Let’s just say that we weren’t surprised that Boss prevailed. We don’t know how he did it, what was said, or any of the details. We are sure of one constant, regardless of whether we ever hear the real story or not. Without a doubt, we know ZIlla was ROYALLY TICKED. She always is when she doesn’t get her way.
Even when it’s something NICE that someone does for her. Boss apparently invited VP, who is pretty good with a camera, to come on over to their house and spearhead the inaugural Family Photo Session, of course, free of charge. So VP went, on his best behavior, requesting that the family choose a time when the baby would be content, awake and alert. Boss chose 10:30 p.m. and Zilla wasn’t happy about it. Don’t know if it was that Boss had made the plans without her knowledge, or that VP was getting closer to the baby than Zilla was comfortable with, or just plain that VP was even in the house, period. It could even have had something to do with the fact that Boss had chosen the most horrible time EVER for a photo shoot, at the end of a long day with a newborn. The baby was SCREAMING, wouldn’t settle down, and kept rooting for a nipple. So the first couple dozen shots, VP said, all show an agitated baby Speedway in some state of craning his neck looking for lunch in all the wrong places.
Since Zilla had been getting HERSELF ready for the photo op , she hadn’t had time to feed the baby, so he was starving – and mad about it. Finally, Zilla excused herself and the babe to the bedroom so the baby could get some relief from his empty tummy and so they could all get some relief from the decibel level. VP appreciated the quiet, but not the forty-five minutes he had to cool his heels waiting for the pair to come back to continue the pictures. Sometime around midnight, Zilla reemerged with the baby. VP said he was able to finally go home around 1:30 a.m. Poor guy. He needed toothpicks for his eyelids.
One subsequent morning at the office, VP tossed the portrait session’s resultant picture CD to me for a look-see. Little Speedway IS a cute, cute baby. Well, as cute as a close-up taken from across a family room with a standard zoom lens can show, anyway. VP told me, with a laugh, to look at Zilla’s face in the initial pictures. Yep, she was REALLY honked off about something. What a sourpuss.
Later on, as he was taking fewer pictures focusing on the baby, and more of the three of them; Boss, Zilla and baby together, VP said he’d made a query about Zilla’s unpleasant expression. He asked her if it would break her face to smile. Marvelous to relate, it didn’t break her face. Maybe Zilla didn’t even realize she looked so unwelcoming. Regardless of the root cause of the attitude change, the rest of the CD shows images of Zilla positively beaming in various poses next to the peacefully sleeping babe (of course, being a newborn, he fell fast asleep after he ate) and the perpetually grimacing Boss.
By the way, that baby furniture apparently is set to be a permanent fixture in our conference room. We just had a fundraising sale, for which I was hoping that item had been brought, but apparently not. Someone has made room for it in a conspicuous corner. (Not in the ladies’ restroom, or in Boss’ office, but in the freakin’ public CONFERENCE room where we host important and influential guests.) A white Jenny Lind changing table, complete with clear acrylic diaper stacker/wipe holder, right next to the fancy upholstered mahogany chairs and occasional table certainly makes an incongruous addition to the décor. Wonder how many of the corporate execs and community leaders, too polite to make a comment, do double-takes when they come in for a meeting?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Chapter 18 - Pregzilla: A Pregnant Pause
(Okay, I lied. This chapter isn’t about the baby’s name. It got too long, and I still hadn’t gotten to the discussion of infant nomenclature, so I had to change the title. It’s kind of on the darker side, as Pregzilla Chronicles go. Just a warning. )
From the time the pregnancy announcement was made, we all knew that Zilla and Boss had some heavy decision-making ahead. On paper, at least, this was not a good time to add a family member.
First of all , Boss’ landlord had recently made notification that the house Boss was occupying was about to be put on the market. Which would mean the two of them could soon be homeless.
A little backstory on that. You might remember that I have said that I had been caring for Boss’ personal finances. He has very little time for routine, menial tasks. I think I started paying Boss’ bills about a year before he got married, long before he ever met Zilla, beginning when he abashedly brought in a disconnect notice from the water company that services his home. He was preparing for a trip out of state, and was terribly busy, but knew this needed to be attended to, pronto. Boss wanted to see if I’d be willing to call the water company and attempt to talk them out of a huge late fee and service charge they’d tacked onto his bill. I’m pretty good at working with vendors and smoothing over problems, and he thought I might be able to help.
The reason behind this unpaid bill was that Boss’ roommate, a young college graduate (incidentally, the earnest musician from the wedding prelude concert ), had been stacking the mail in the wrong place in the house. Boss doesn’t pay much attention unless a bill is actually placed in hand, so he had missed his water payment a couple of times. And incidentally, he shared with me, his other utility bills were either already in arrears or about to be, due to the misplaced mail.
My previous job had been as a mortgage loan officer, so I was well aware the havoc that can be wreaked on a credit report by having accounts in collections. I knew also that Boss’ deep desire was to get married. Putting both of these together , and knowing that this probably wasn’t the first time Boss had a slow pay on an account, I wanted to help him get his act together. I offered to set up online accounts for all his bills, check them regularly and make sure they were always paid on time, even when he was out of town. I knew that what was costing HIM several hours a month of disorganization and stress would only take me a few minutes per week after the initial set-up. I even pulled Boss’ credit report for him and showed him what steps he needed to take to bring up his score, so that at some time in the future, he could be prepared to offer a new bride more pleasant financial possibilities, like, the ability to get a credit card, car loan, or mortgage, for example. Or simply not to have to pay an arm and a leg for auto insurance! The little things that mean so much to a spouse and make you much less likely to want to wring their necks!
I’d been doing all I could to help Boss improve his credit history as quickly as possible, but obviously, it can’t happen overnight, and even though it had been several months since I’d taken over his personal finances, when the wedding took place it had not been NEARLY enough time to make a real impact on his financial reputation. I had talked to him a little bit about the realistic money-related goals he wanted to meet before he married, and although there was SOME progress, he hadn’t reached even ONE of those goals yet when he asked Zilla for her hand. I mean, he had to take out a loan for her wedding and engagement rings, even after deciding that having sufficient resources to pay CASH for wedding jewelry had been one of his FIRM goals. But what are ya gonna do? He’s a big boy.
One thing I knew almost for sure; they were in no position to put a downpayment on a home, in the event they had to leave the place he and Zilla were occupying now. None of my business, but I was skeptical whether they could even scrape together enough for a rental deposit, let alone pay monthly rent, based on the whopper of a medical tab Zilla surely must have run up on the honeymoon , and Boss’ somewhat anxious comments about the lack of cash gifts from the wedding reception(s). So if Boss and Zilla had their current residence sold out from under them, the house on which Boss had secured FREE rent from the owner, they’d probably be at the mercy of family members for a place to stay. Boss had previously lived with one of his sisters and her DH for awhile, but – not with Pregzilla. Since Miss Princess Zilla has so de-ingratiated herself with Boss’ family, the imposition of asking any one of them to share their home is not likely to ever be a viable alternative.
Secondly , Boss had developed a pretty ambitious set of objectives for our organization over the next year, which included several time-intensive major events and a trip overseas. Had Zilla (or anyone – we weren’t that picky! ) been able to jump right in and be an active member of our support staff, we might have been able to pull them all off. But Boss’ aspirations were far too grandiose for our small staff. An even worse sign - the overseas trip, which Boss remained doggedly committed to up until early spring, was scheduled for late July into early August. They had just announced that Zilla was due on August 7. In fact, the delegation was set to return to the states on August 4, which turned out to be three days AFTER the baby’s actual birth.
We at the office had some frustrated fun with Boss’ delusion about his being able to keep the foreign journey obligation. He readily agreed that of course, Zilla probably wouldn’t be able to go. No kidding. But it would still work out okay, because she could just have that baby before they left. Oh REALLY, just like that? Well, and then she’s not actually DUE until the 7th, so she could also just wait until they got back. As if the mom controls the time of the labor, and Zilla could just will the birth to occur on whatever day was convenient. Boss actually said this with Zilla sitting right THERE at the table with us. I had never before realized how unattentive Boss must have been during his siblings’ and their spouses’ pregnancies. Like, totally oblivious. He did finally nix the idea of the overseas trip later, in April, citing some overcharging of fees by the trip organizers and that he no longer felt peace about going. No, if my husband was planning on going on a non-mandatory foreign expedition three days before I was due with our first child, I can bet you that peace is the LAST thing he would feel.
Thirdly , again due to skimpy corporate finances, all employees of our organization must supply their own health insurance independently. Boss, being a fairly healthy single guy with a lot of connections, didn’t bother with it. If he got sick and needed a doctor, he’d call a physician friend who’d be glad to take a look at him. Zilla lost her health insurance when the store where she worked went out of business. Boss had already experienced the incredible financial vortex of Zilla’s recurring need for medical attention, so I’m sure the thought of Zilla pregnant and requiring even more health monitoring was quite shocking for him.
And finally , though there was never any specific communication regarding such from either Boss or Zilla, we could all tell that married life wasn’t at ALL what either of them had anticipated it would be. Each of them had built up an image of the other that had most likely been dashed to pieces sometime during those first couple of weeks of marriage. They just plain ol’ hadn’t had enough time to get to fully acquainted before they were ceremonially stuck with each other “forever.” Cautionary word to the wise…
In Boss’ own words, speaking of the pregnancy “This isn’t the time we would have picked for this to happen.” Well, as my dear mom said once, “Those that play have gotta pay,” and “If you can’t afford a condom, you surely can’t afford a baby.” Wise woman. I’m just sayin’.
After the initial shock of the announcement wore off, the magnitude of what was happening truly set in. Zilla was sick, she was crotchety, and if anything, she was even less charming than she had been in the enlightening and prophetic moments just before her wedding. Sis and the nephews happened to be stranded by bad weather one night early in January, and Boss reluctantly (which seemed odd to them because he’s typically so hospitable) invited them to bunk down at his place. Sis told me they had arrived, been there for a short time, and were expecting Zilla to come greet them at any moment. Zilla materialized at the door of her bedroom, glared silently at all of them for a long moment , turned and slammed the door. Boss excused himself and went in to speak with her.
Nephew said as they were settling onto the couches and recliners to sleep, they heard a heated exchange behind that closed door. Boss eventually emerged from the bedroom carrying a pillow and blanket and asked one of them to move to the floor so Boss could have the recliner. Nephew asked what was going on and got the reply, “She can’t stand the way I smell, so I’ve been sleeping out here until she feels better.” Ouch. I didn’t ask many questions, but the family updates confirmed that Boss’ bedroom was the living room for a good long time.
When in the office, Boss spent a lot of time on the phone with Zilla. He always spoke soothingly, like you would imagine a horseman might talk to a skittish colt. You’d hear, before Boss shut his office door, things like, “No, Sweetheart, that’s not it at all…. Now, you don’t have to do THAT….” Sounded like he was trying to peel her off the walls over the phone. I was praying, for his sake – for all our sakes – that it was just those crazy pregnancy hormones.
Zilla reportedly couldn’t keep anything down , yet Boss reported a plethora of stereotypical middle-of-the night runs to the grocery to fulfill her random cravings. Then, her beloved Kitty died and things really went south. Once, she was admitted to the hospital overnight for dehydration, and a whole handful of occurrences of visits to the urgent care - for a bag of fluids this time, a bleeding hemorrhoid next, indigestion or vomiting the time after. Her OB pleaded with her to call the office first (I know him - he would have talked her down and told her to stay home ) but somehow, that didn’t happen. She wouldn’t call. Boss started to stress about the bills. The OB gave Boss a way out by offering his services free of charge – see, I told you people just love to give Boss things…
Boss had a birthday in January. Birthdays are a big deal in Boss’ family – EVERYBODY goes to each family member’s birthday celebration. We in the office decided to take Boss to lunch on his birthday, at a place just across the street from the subdivision where Boss and Zilla live. His whole family was invited, and they all came. We had already heard from Boss that Zilla had been feeling better that day – she was nearly 12 weeks along, and her all-day morning sickness seemed to be improving somewhat. Zilla was going to drive the, oh, 400 feet or so to the restaurant and meet us there. NO, she did NOT want anyone to pick her up. Boss shrugged. She was funny about things like that sometimes, he said.
So we waited on her. And waited. Boss called her. She must be on her way, no answer. “No ma’am, we’ll order when the rest of our party gets here. “ More waiting. Boss called again. Short conversation. Rather stunned look. Zilla wasn’t coming. She had changed her mind, ON BOSS’ BIRTHDAY, and had stood up the whole family and office staff while we waited for her at the restaurant. Boss tried not to show it, but he HAD to be crushed. He spent a long time talking with one of his siblings after we ate – one who had also had some marriage struggles. I felt really bad for Boss. But ya know, It wasn’t like he wasn’t warned…
By the way, the thing about Boss’ landlord selling the house he lives in – it seems to have gone away. Boss and Zilla repainted the rooms and replaced that tainted carpet in the nursery. I don’t know the details, but they’re staying put for now.
Home Sweet (I mean Sterile) Home.
From the time the pregnancy announcement was made, we all knew that Zilla and Boss had some heavy decision-making ahead. On paper, at least, this was not a good time to add a family member.
First of all , Boss’ landlord had recently made notification that the house Boss was occupying was about to be put on the market. Which would mean the two of them could soon be homeless.
A little backstory on that. You might remember that I have said that I had been caring for Boss’ personal finances. He has very little time for routine, menial tasks. I think I started paying Boss’ bills about a year before he got married, long before he ever met Zilla, beginning when he abashedly brought in a disconnect notice from the water company that services his home. He was preparing for a trip out of state, and was terribly busy, but knew this needed to be attended to, pronto. Boss wanted to see if I’d be willing to call the water company and attempt to talk them out of a huge late fee and service charge they’d tacked onto his bill. I’m pretty good at working with vendors and smoothing over problems, and he thought I might be able to help.
The reason behind this unpaid bill was that Boss’ roommate, a young college graduate (incidentally, the earnest musician from the wedding prelude concert ), had been stacking the mail in the wrong place in the house. Boss doesn’t pay much attention unless a bill is actually placed in hand, so he had missed his water payment a couple of times. And incidentally, he shared with me, his other utility bills were either already in arrears or about to be, due to the misplaced mail.
My previous job had been as a mortgage loan officer, so I was well aware the havoc that can be wreaked on a credit report by having accounts in collections. I knew also that Boss’ deep desire was to get married. Putting both of these together , and knowing that this probably wasn’t the first time Boss had a slow pay on an account, I wanted to help him get his act together. I offered to set up online accounts for all his bills, check them regularly and make sure they were always paid on time, even when he was out of town. I knew that what was costing HIM several hours a month of disorganization and stress would only take me a few minutes per week after the initial set-up. I even pulled Boss’ credit report for him and showed him what steps he needed to take to bring up his score, so that at some time in the future, he could be prepared to offer a new bride more pleasant financial possibilities, like, the ability to get a credit card, car loan, or mortgage, for example. Or simply not to have to pay an arm and a leg for auto insurance! The little things that mean so much to a spouse and make you much less likely to want to wring their necks!
I’d been doing all I could to help Boss improve his credit history as quickly as possible, but obviously, it can’t happen overnight, and even though it had been several months since I’d taken over his personal finances, when the wedding took place it had not been NEARLY enough time to make a real impact on his financial reputation. I had talked to him a little bit about the realistic money-related goals he wanted to meet before he married, and although there was SOME progress, he hadn’t reached even ONE of those goals yet when he asked Zilla for her hand. I mean, he had to take out a loan for her wedding and engagement rings, even after deciding that having sufficient resources to pay CASH for wedding jewelry had been one of his FIRM goals. But what are ya gonna do? He’s a big boy.
One thing I knew almost for sure; they were in no position to put a downpayment on a home, in the event they had to leave the place he and Zilla were occupying now. None of my business, but I was skeptical whether they could even scrape together enough for a rental deposit, let alone pay monthly rent, based on the whopper of a medical tab Zilla surely must have run up on the honeymoon , and Boss’ somewhat anxious comments about the lack of cash gifts from the wedding reception(s). So if Boss and Zilla had their current residence sold out from under them, the house on which Boss had secured FREE rent from the owner, they’d probably be at the mercy of family members for a place to stay. Boss had previously lived with one of his sisters and her DH for awhile, but – not with Pregzilla. Since Miss Princess Zilla has so de-ingratiated herself with Boss’ family, the imposition of asking any one of them to share their home is not likely to ever be a viable alternative.
Secondly , Boss had developed a pretty ambitious set of objectives for our organization over the next year, which included several time-intensive major events and a trip overseas. Had Zilla (or anyone – we weren’t that picky! ) been able to jump right in and be an active member of our support staff, we might have been able to pull them all off. But Boss’ aspirations were far too grandiose for our small staff. An even worse sign - the overseas trip, which Boss remained doggedly committed to up until early spring, was scheduled for late July into early August. They had just announced that Zilla was due on August 7. In fact, the delegation was set to return to the states on August 4, which turned out to be three days AFTER the baby’s actual birth.
We at the office had some frustrated fun with Boss’ delusion about his being able to keep the foreign journey obligation. He readily agreed that of course, Zilla probably wouldn’t be able to go. No kidding. But it would still work out okay, because she could just have that baby before they left. Oh REALLY, just like that? Well, and then she’s not actually DUE until the 7th, so she could also just wait until they got back. As if the mom controls the time of the labor, and Zilla could just will the birth to occur on whatever day was convenient. Boss actually said this with Zilla sitting right THERE at the table with us. I had never before realized how unattentive Boss must have been during his siblings’ and their spouses’ pregnancies. Like, totally oblivious. He did finally nix the idea of the overseas trip later, in April, citing some overcharging of fees by the trip organizers and that he no longer felt peace about going. No, if my husband was planning on going on a non-mandatory foreign expedition three days before I was due with our first child, I can bet you that peace is the LAST thing he would feel.
Thirdly , again due to skimpy corporate finances, all employees of our organization must supply their own health insurance independently. Boss, being a fairly healthy single guy with a lot of connections, didn’t bother with it. If he got sick and needed a doctor, he’d call a physician friend who’d be glad to take a look at him. Zilla lost her health insurance when the store where she worked went out of business. Boss had already experienced the incredible financial vortex of Zilla’s recurring need for medical attention, so I’m sure the thought of Zilla pregnant and requiring even more health monitoring was quite shocking for him.
And finally , though there was never any specific communication regarding such from either Boss or Zilla, we could all tell that married life wasn’t at ALL what either of them had anticipated it would be. Each of them had built up an image of the other that had most likely been dashed to pieces sometime during those first couple of weeks of marriage. They just plain ol’ hadn’t had enough time to get to fully acquainted before they were ceremonially stuck with each other “forever.” Cautionary word to the wise…
In Boss’ own words, speaking of the pregnancy “This isn’t the time we would have picked for this to happen.” Well, as my dear mom said once, “Those that play have gotta pay,” and “If you can’t afford a condom, you surely can’t afford a baby.” Wise woman. I’m just sayin’.
After the initial shock of the announcement wore off, the magnitude of what was happening truly set in. Zilla was sick, she was crotchety, and if anything, she was even less charming than she had been in the enlightening and prophetic moments just before her wedding. Sis and the nephews happened to be stranded by bad weather one night early in January, and Boss reluctantly (which seemed odd to them because he’s typically so hospitable) invited them to bunk down at his place. Sis told me they had arrived, been there for a short time, and were expecting Zilla to come greet them at any moment. Zilla materialized at the door of her bedroom, glared silently at all of them for a long moment , turned and slammed the door. Boss excused himself and went in to speak with her.
Nephew said as they were settling onto the couches and recliners to sleep, they heard a heated exchange behind that closed door. Boss eventually emerged from the bedroom carrying a pillow and blanket and asked one of them to move to the floor so Boss could have the recliner. Nephew asked what was going on and got the reply, “She can’t stand the way I smell, so I’ve been sleeping out here until she feels better.” Ouch. I didn’t ask many questions, but the family updates confirmed that Boss’ bedroom was the living room for a good long time.
When in the office, Boss spent a lot of time on the phone with Zilla. He always spoke soothingly, like you would imagine a horseman might talk to a skittish colt. You’d hear, before Boss shut his office door, things like, “No, Sweetheart, that’s not it at all…. Now, you don’t have to do THAT….” Sounded like he was trying to peel her off the walls over the phone. I was praying, for his sake – for all our sakes – that it was just those crazy pregnancy hormones.
Zilla reportedly couldn’t keep anything down , yet Boss reported a plethora of stereotypical middle-of-the night runs to the grocery to fulfill her random cravings. Then, her beloved Kitty died and things really went south. Once, she was admitted to the hospital overnight for dehydration, and a whole handful of occurrences of visits to the urgent care - for a bag of fluids this time, a bleeding hemorrhoid next, indigestion or vomiting the time after. Her OB pleaded with her to call the office first (I know him - he would have talked her down and told her to stay home ) but somehow, that didn’t happen. She wouldn’t call. Boss started to stress about the bills. The OB gave Boss a way out by offering his services free of charge – see, I told you people just love to give Boss things…
Boss had a birthday in January. Birthdays are a big deal in Boss’ family – EVERYBODY goes to each family member’s birthday celebration. We in the office decided to take Boss to lunch on his birthday, at a place just across the street from the subdivision where Boss and Zilla live. His whole family was invited, and they all came. We had already heard from Boss that Zilla had been feeling better that day – she was nearly 12 weeks along, and her all-day morning sickness seemed to be improving somewhat. Zilla was going to drive the, oh, 400 feet or so to the restaurant and meet us there. NO, she did NOT want anyone to pick her up. Boss shrugged. She was funny about things like that sometimes, he said.
So we waited on her. And waited. Boss called her. She must be on her way, no answer. “No ma’am, we’ll order when the rest of our party gets here. “ More waiting. Boss called again. Short conversation. Rather stunned look. Zilla wasn’t coming. She had changed her mind, ON BOSS’ BIRTHDAY, and had stood up the whole family and office staff while we waited for her at the restaurant. Boss tried not to show it, but he HAD to be crushed. He spent a long time talking with one of his siblings after we ate – one who had also had some marriage struggles. I felt really bad for Boss. But ya know, It wasn’t like he wasn’t warned…
By the way, the thing about Boss’ landlord selling the house he lives in – it seems to have gone away. Boss and Zilla repainted the rooms and replaced that tainted carpet in the nursery. I don’t know the details, but they’re staying put for now.
Home Sweet (I mean Sterile) Home.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Chapter 17 – Pregzilla Delivers!
(I'm absolutely SURE there will be more info coming about the blessed event, but here's what I know so far:)
Birthdate: August 1, 2008, 9:05 p.m. (5 days and 3 hours before his due date)
Vitals: 8 lb., 2.6 oz., 22 inches (tall)
OH. MY. GOSH. After all that I’ve seen and heard about over the last 10 months, I thought I’d be prepared for whatever was likely to occur during/after the birth of Boss’ and Pregzilla’s Little Man. Now that the madness has begun in earnest, I have realized that there was no way anyone COULD be prepared…
Zilla’s water broke at home on Friday midmorning. Boss was at a meeting in the city. He had ridden with our organization’s VP, so after Zilla’s frantic cell call , they sped back to Boss’ place. Boss scurried to get the bags in the vehicle and Zilla loaded, just like in the movies. They arrived at the hospital where the details I have now become a little sketchy, but I do know that someone picked up the grandmothers – neither of whom drive, and dropped them off at the hospital to be a part of the labor room support team.
As I’ve mentioned before, Boss’ family is pretty tight, so it wasn’t long before his whole clan had set up camp in the waiting room of labor & delivery. They were all expecting that, as in past family birth experiences, they’d each get a chance to casually visit in turn with the prospective parents, and then after the delivery, be invited in to meet the new family member as soon as it was practical. That’s just the way they do things. It’s nice, it’s friendly, it’s inclusive……and it was TOTALLY not a part of Zilla’s birth plan.
Zilla decided that there would, in addition to the medical staff, be three and only three other people allowed in the birthing suite. Boss, Zilla’s mom and Boss’ mom. Boss’ mom was allowed in only because Boss specifically had requested/demanded it. Zilla had conceded as long as Boss’ mom would take care of the video footage. I found that extremely interesting, because if you knew Boss’ mom, she is probably one of the last people on the planet you would choose to enlist to video ANYTHING, let alone an important event like a birth. So the fact that Boss had slid her into the room in the capacity of videographer was amazing, because having high-quality video is typically SO important to Boss. It also showed what I imagined to be Boss’ desperation to get a ticket for his mom. That must have been the ONLY way Zilla was letting her through the door.
In fact, one of Boss’ sisters had offered to video so that Boss’ mom could relax (an oxymoron, if you know Boss’ mom, who doesn’t relax about ANYthing) and enjoy the birth of her new grandchild. No dice, and no thank you. Zilla did permit the entrance of a minister and his wife early on for a short time, and this peeved Boss’ family even more. Why, those people weren’t even FAMILY, and they weren’t even from Boss’ and Zilla’s church, Boss’ family sniped. But still, they waited, sure that when all was said and done, and labor was ended, they’d be allowed in to meet the baby and spend time with the new family.
By evening, Zilla had spiked a low grade fever, and when it came time to push, she tuckered out quickly. The OB decided to use vacuum extraction to deliver the baby. There are so many double entendres that could describe this dynamic course of action, but none of them are very polite or politically correct, so we’ll just say that Little Man was eventually sucked out of Zilla’s loins. He had a brief breathing issue, but was soon hale and hearty with a strong set of lungs. After a short stay in the nursery for observation and his first bath, where Boss’ family was able to snap some pictures through the glass, he was returned to his parents.
And still the family waited. As the medical team had attended to Zilla, and the neonatal staff had cared for the baby in the nursery, Boss had jovially visited with his family. After it was clear that everything was going well, Boss disappeared into Zilla’s room, promising to be “right back.” The family said they heard the sound of a baby crying inside the room, and realized that Boss and Zilla were watching the birth video together. THE WHOLE THING. The baby was eventually brought in, and the new family had some time alone together.
And still, the family waited. After quite a while, Boss reemerged from the room, reporting that Zilla and the baby were resting, thanks for coming, and they’d see them all soon. Bye. Anticlimax, to the max, especially after they’d all spent all day at the hospital, and it was now after midnight. Mad is another word I heard bandied about during the recounting.
I talked to our organization’s VP on Saturday morning. He was on his way to the hospital for a visit. I got the lowdown on that visit this morning at work. I really didn’t expect to hear ANYTHING juicy from VP, as he’s always VERY discreet, but the first words out of his mouth after his greeting to me, and asking me if I’d seen the baby yet – I haven’t – was to tell me that the little guy is very cute; oh, and Zilla is NUTS. Poor Boss. He's in for a long haul. Whaaaaaaaaat???
Yep. Nuts. VP is baby-saavy enough not to touch a newborn without the mom’s permission, but I guess when he bent down (not even very close) to get a good look at the baby’s face, Zilla gasped and whipped the babe over on the other side of her, AWAY from VP. Okay, he chalked it up to new mom jitters….
And then, he said, the baby got the hiccups. Zilla went into hysterics, shrieking at Boss to go get the nurse. VP said you would have thought the baby was choking to death. VP, an experienced dad, tried to calm Zilla down and explain that hiccups in newborns are pretty common and normal, and not dangerous, and they bother the parents more than they bother the baby. Boss was soaking up the wisdom appreciatively, but Zilla wasn’t having any of it. She kept frantically yelping at Boss until he got up and sprinted out in the hallway to flag down a nurse. Disaster averted, I guess.
VP mentioned to me that Zilla needs an experienced mother to mentor her and help her deal with the stresses of new motherhood. No kidding?! And that I’d be a good one for that job. Nope, nothing doing. Whoa. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. Not with Zilla. Not unless I saw a total 180° change in her way of thinking. I’m compassionate, but I’m not crazy. Thanks for the vote of confidence just the same, though.
Zilla and the babe were released from the hospital late Sunday night. Family gathered at Boss’ house to welcome them home, figuring that surely, now that they were out of the hospital, Zilla would soften and let them have a crack at holding, or at least TOUCHING the baby. They were dreaming once again. NOBODY but Zilla and Boss hold the baby. NOBODY. Nobody but Zilla and Boss touch the baby. No exceptions. One of the seven-foot nephews reported that Zilla stiff-armed him when he passed too close to the baby during the welcome home assembly, and again when he awkwardly attempted to give Zilla a customary goodbye hug when they all gave up on ever getting ahold of the baby and left to go home. No warm embraces of thankfulness for the siblings’ presence and support during labor from Zilla, and DEFINITELY no sweet baby nuzzles. Step AWAY from the baby. Shoot, step AWAY from Zilla!
Boss called during our staff meeting at the office this morning. Since they just got home from the hospital last night, he wasn’t in the office today. VP predicts that we won’t be seeing much of Boss for SOME time to come; that Zilla will be keeping Boss pretty busy waiting on her and Babezilla. I’ll have to admit, Boss sounded REALLY frazzled on the speakerphone. He said the baby is doing well, but Zilla is in lots of pain. They had just been to the doctor for her. Really? Less than 12 hours after she was released from the hospital? What a surprise! But everything is normal, and there are no problems with Zilla’s recovery. Just her nagging pain. (And his. And ours. ) Again, what a surprise.
In a wicked moment, VP asked when Boss and Zilla would be bringing the baby in to the office so that everyone could hold it and snuggle with it. I couldn’t BELIEVE he asked that, but how entertaining! Since Boss was on the speakerphone on his end as well as ours, we were all nobly muffling our guffaws of helpless laughter so Zilla wouldn’t hear. We didn’t want either her or Boss to suspect that the staff was already swapping shocking stories about her Momzilla ways, complete with references to John Travolta and the Boy in the Plastic Bubble. And all this with the poor babe yet less than three days old! Boss would say only that the little family would pay the office a visit “in time.” I’m not holding my breath, how about you? Well, on second thought, maybe we SHOULD hold our breaths after all, ALL OF US, since we all share the same atmosphere with the sterile Babezilla.
Okay, I know I gotta go see that kid, and soon , but how discomfiting it will be to be in the presence of a perfectly healthy newborn that I can’t touch, no matter how well I scrub up. I LOVE babies, new ones most especially, and that’s just going to be so weird for me. I think maybe I’ll take along the sign-language books Zilla asked me about a few months ago, (Little Man’s going to learn sign language.) and the “What to Expect” books I dug out of my collection for her. And a nice little baby gift (but not clothes, of course). Anybody know where I can pick up a good used autoclave in a Noah’s Ark pattern?
Birthdate: August 1, 2008, 9:05 p.m. (5 days and 3 hours before his due date)
Vitals: 8 lb., 2.6 oz., 22 inches (tall)
OH. MY. GOSH. After all that I’ve seen and heard about over the last 10 months, I thought I’d be prepared for whatever was likely to occur during/after the birth of Boss’ and Pregzilla’s Little Man. Now that the madness has begun in earnest, I have realized that there was no way anyone COULD be prepared…
Zilla’s water broke at home on Friday midmorning. Boss was at a meeting in the city. He had ridden with our organization’s VP, so after Zilla’s frantic cell call , they sped back to Boss’ place. Boss scurried to get the bags in the vehicle and Zilla loaded, just like in the movies. They arrived at the hospital where the details I have now become a little sketchy, but I do know that someone picked up the grandmothers – neither of whom drive, and dropped them off at the hospital to be a part of the labor room support team.
As I’ve mentioned before, Boss’ family is pretty tight, so it wasn’t long before his whole clan had set up camp in the waiting room of labor & delivery. They were all expecting that, as in past family birth experiences, they’d each get a chance to casually visit in turn with the prospective parents, and then after the delivery, be invited in to meet the new family member as soon as it was practical. That’s just the way they do things. It’s nice, it’s friendly, it’s inclusive……and it was TOTALLY not a part of Zilla’s birth plan.
Zilla decided that there would, in addition to the medical staff, be three and only three other people allowed in the birthing suite. Boss, Zilla’s mom and Boss’ mom. Boss’ mom was allowed in only because Boss specifically had requested/demanded it. Zilla had conceded as long as Boss’ mom would take care of the video footage. I found that extremely interesting, because if you knew Boss’ mom, she is probably one of the last people on the planet you would choose to enlist to video ANYTHING, let alone an important event like a birth. So the fact that Boss had slid her into the room in the capacity of videographer was amazing, because having high-quality video is typically SO important to Boss. It also showed what I imagined to be Boss’ desperation to get a ticket for his mom. That must have been the ONLY way Zilla was letting her through the door.
In fact, one of Boss’ sisters had offered to video so that Boss’ mom could relax (an oxymoron, if you know Boss’ mom, who doesn’t relax about ANYthing) and enjoy the birth of her new grandchild. No dice, and no thank you. Zilla did permit the entrance of a minister and his wife early on for a short time, and this peeved Boss’ family even more. Why, those people weren’t even FAMILY, and they weren’t even from Boss’ and Zilla’s church, Boss’ family sniped. But still, they waited, sure that when all was said and done, and labor was ended, they’d be allowed in to meet the baby and spend time with the new family.
By evening, Zilla had spiked a low grade fever, and when it came time to push, she tuckered out quickly. The OB decided to use vacuum extraction to deliver the baby. There are so many double entendres that could describe this dynamic course of action, but none of them are very polite or politically correct, so we’ll just say that Little Man was eventually sucked out of Zilla’s loins. He had a brief breathing issue, but was soon hale and hearty with a strong set of lungs. After a short stay in the nursery for observation and his first bath, where Boss’ family was able to snap some pictures through the glass, he was returned to his parents.
And still the family waited. As the medical team had attended to Zilla, and the neonatal staff had cared for the baby in the nursery, Boss had jovially visited with his family. After it was clear that everything was going well, Boss disappeared into Zilla’s room, promising to be “right back.” The family said they heard the sound of a baby crying inside the room, and realized that Boss and Zilla were watching the birth video together. THE WHOLE THING. The baby was eventually brought in, and the new family had some time alone together.
And still, the family waited. After quite a while, Boss reemerged from the room, reporting that Zilla and the baby were resting, thanks for coming, and they’d see them all soon. Bye. Anticlimax, to the max, especially after they’d all spent all day at the hospital, and it was now after midnight. Mad is another word I heard bandied about during the recounting.
I talked to our organization’s VP on Saturday morning. He was on his way to the hospital for a visit. I got the lowdown on that visit this morning at work. I really didn’t expect to hear ANYTHING juicy from VP, as he’s always VERY discreet, but the first words out of his mouth after his greeting to me, and asking me if I’d seen the baby yet – I haven’t – was to tell me that the little guy is very cute; oh, and Zilla is NUTS. Poor Boss. He's in for a long haul. Whaaaaaaaaat???
Yep. Nuts. VP is baby-saavy enough not to touch a newborn without the mom’s permission, but I guess when he bent down (not even very close) to get a good look at the baby’s face, Zilla gasped and whipped the babe over on the other side of her, AWAY from VP. Okay, he chalked it up to new mom jitters….
And then, he said, the baby got the hiccups. Zilla went into hysterics, shrieking at Boss to go get the nurse. VP said you would have thought the baby was choking to death. VP, an experienced dad, tried to calm Zilla down and explain that hiccups in newborns are pretty common and normal, and not dangerous, and they bother the parents more than they bother the baby. Boss was soaking up the wisdom appreciatively, but Zilla wasn’t having any of it. She kept frantically yelping at Boss until he got up and sprinted out in the hallway to flag down a nurse. Disaster averted, I guess.
VP mentioned to me that Zilla needs an experienced mother to mentor her and help her deal with the stresses of new motherhood. No kidding?! And that I’d be a good one for that job. Nope, nothing doing. Whoa. I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole. Not with Zilla. Not unless I saw a total 180° change in her way of thinking. I’m compassionate, but I’m not crazy. Thanks for the vote of confidence just the same, though.
Zilla and the babe were released from the hospital late Sunday night. Family gathered at Boss’ house to welcome them home, figuring that surely, now that they were out of the hospital, Zilla would soften and let them have a crack at holding, or at least TOUCHING the baby. They were dreaming once again. NOBODY but Zilla and Boss hold the baby. NOBODY. Nobody but Zilla and Boss touch the baby. No exceptions. One of the seven-foot nephews reported that Zilla stiff-armed him when he passed too close to the baby during the welcome home assembly, and again when he awkwardly attempted to give Zilla a customary goodbye hug when they all gave up on ever getting ahold of the baby and left to go home. No warm embraces of thankfulness for the siblings’ presence and support during labor from Zilla, and DEFINITELY no sweet baby nuzzles. Step AWAY from the baby. Shoot, step AWAY from Zilla!
Boss called during our staff meeting at the office this morning. Since they just got home from the hospital last night, he wasn’t in the office today. VP predicts that we won’t be seeing much of Boss for SOME time to come; that Zilla will be keeping Boss pretty busy waiting on her and Babezilla. I’ll have to admit, Boss sounded REALLY frazzled on the speakerphone. He said the baby is doing well, but Zilla is in lots of pain. They had just been to the doctor for her. Really? Less than 12 hours after she was released from the hospital? What a surprise! But everything is normal, and there are no problems with Zilla’s recovery. Just her nagging pain. (And his. And ours. ) Again, what a surprise.
In a wicked moment, VP asked when Boss and Zilla would be bringing the baby in to the office so that everyone could hold it and snuggle with it. I couldn’t BELIEVE he asked that, but how entertaining! Since Boss was on the speakerphone on his end as well as ours, we were all nobly muffling our guffaws of helpless laughter so Zilla wouldn’t hear. We didn’t want either her or Boss to suspect that the staff was already swapping shocking stories about her Momzilla ways, complete with references to John Travolta and the Boy in the Plastic Bubble. And all this with the poor babe yet less than three days old! Boss would say only that the little family would pay the office a visit “in time.” I’m not holding my breath, how about you? Well, on second thought, maybe we SHOULD hold our breaths after all, ALL OF US, since we all share the same atmosphere with the sterile Babezilla.
Okay, I know I gotta go see that kid, and soon , but how discomfiting it will be to be in the presence of a perfectly healthy newborn that I can’t touch, no matter how well I scrub up. I LOVE babies, new ones most especially, and that’s just going to be so weird for me. I think maybe I’ll take along the sign-language books Zilla asked me about a few months ago, (Little Man’s going to learn sign language.) and the “What to Expect” books I dug out of my collection for her. And a nice little baby gift (but not clothes, of course). Anybody know where I can pick up a good used autoclave in a Noah’s Ark pattern?
Chapter 16 – Pregzilla: The More Things Change…
(Yeah, I know the baby's here. But this was already queued up, so I finished it. )
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” right? You’ve heard the old adage. Likewise, I’ve noticed that certain deficient elements of Boss’ and Zilla’s character appear as recurrent themes in our stories. Like obliviousness, entitlement, and lack of preparation.
You’ll recall that soon after Zilla and Boss returned from their honeymoon, as Zilla crammed her first and last day of employment with our organization into a single 10-day period, our heroine was feeling increasingly ill. Every few days was punctuated with a trip to an immediate care facility or the local emergency room, depending on the perceived severity of Zilla’s symptoms.
She really WAS feeling puny, I’ll grant her that. First her UTI, which caused intense pelvic pain and later morphed into a mild kidney infection. Then she had a little stomach bug, followed by the steady development of a head cold. On the heels of their return home, she had the notorious ovulation experience, after which the aforementioned cold settled in her chest and created a nasty, lingering cough. And THEN, she began to suffer from some hauntingly familiar (to ME) flu-like symptoms that compounded her misery. I guessed she was pregnant even before she burst through the front door of our office one evening and made a nauseous beeline for the porcelain bowl in the ladies’ room.
Zilla was convinced she would surely die of her mysterious and debilitating ailment. I knew that my pulling her aside and informing her that I suspected she was PREGNANT would probably not end well, so I kept my yap shut. Especially after Zilla’s mass email debacle, and the account password shut-out, and the double-paid bills muddle. Zilla would probably think I was trying to exact some sort of revenge for making a disaster of my nice organized office procedures. Besides, I knew she’d eventually figure out her delicate condition on her own.
After a fair number of unsatisfying clinic and ER visits, Zilla and Boss took matters into their own hands. They completely forsook modern medicine and had enlisted Boss’ favorite alternative homeopathic/naturopathic/herbal guru to guide Zilla through a lemon juice fast, charcoal cleanse and super vitamin bulk-up as a last gasp effort to rid her body of whatever ghastly and insidious germs had invaded her system.
All became strangely quiet on the office front. The desk that Zilla had meticulously sanitized sat empty, its array of undisturbed disinfecting products a tacit reminder that surface underneath was falling victim to the degeneration of time and unsterile air particles, and that her careful efforts had been essentially futile. She never came back to the office as a staff member. We kept her desk empty for a while out of deference to her, but it was for naught. Boss was frequently absent, pressed into service as Zilla’s nurse.
In the meantime, the ever-active Boss and his family had been amassing a list of key associates and acquaintances who had curiously slipped through the cracks of being issued an invitation to the wedding. As the wedding plans had been going forward, there were about a BAZILLION people whom we staff knew Boss would want to witness the ceremony. Since there was no time for formal invitations, they all had to be notified via phone or email, or in person. Boss, being the control-freak micromanager that he is, wanted the honor of making all these notifications PERSONALLY. Boss gets a real charge out of shock value, and he wanted to hear or see the stunned reaction HIMSELF as each listener learned that Boss was getting married in TWO WEEKS to a stranger they’d never laid eyes on.
It quite frankly became somewhat of an uncomfortable situation for our staff in the weeks preceding the wedding. We’d been asked by Boss not to spread the news ourselves, so whenever we’d get a call, we couldn’t make any notifications beyond, “Hey, have you talked to Boss lately? I think you oughta talk to Boss.” There were literally THOUSANDS of people who needed to learn this matrimonial news to prevent hurt feelings, but our hands were tied.
So, do the math. Two weeks and change to prepare for the wedding. Even though Boss talks on the phone several hours per day, he had quite a few details to attend to, plus a time-consuming major event to prepare for which was totally unrelated to the speedily approaching ceremony. When Boss talks on the phone, he typically doesn’t get right to the point, and as a result spends at least 15-20 minutes on each call, sometimes more. So even if he was able to reach 10 or 12 new people per day with the blessed news, he was still going to fall far short of the thousands he had intended. And that’s just what happened.
As near the ceremony as the very afternoon of, Boss was calling me asking, “Did you tell Yoohoo and Yahoo and Yayhoo? How about Skeezix? Could you give them a call and let them know?” Okay Dude, your wedding is in less than two hours. How tacky is that, for your office assistant to extend an emergency telephone wedding invitation to a person who has erroneously harbored the thought that they might be your close buddy? Fine tribute to friendship there, old chum. Yessiree.
Bottom line, although the attendance was quite remarkable for a slap-dash affair, it wasn’t even CLOSE to what MIGHT have been the turnout if there had been time for a REAL engagement period that included LEGITIMATE wedding planning. Of course, lack of invited guests created one other lamentable result: a shortage of wedding gifts. Now, the table at the venue was piled high, don’t get me wrong. But Boss didn’t turn nearly the cash profit he was expecting on the wedding. He seemed rather bewildered when he told me that he and Zilla basically broke even on their honeymoon. That’s presumably not ALL they broke , but I go off the point.
Our usual customary business at the office valiantly carried on. A little less than one month after the wedding, our newly resurrected email list got a heartfelt summons to an “evening of celebration.” At the top of the newsletter was a brief agenda of the evening’s festivities, which were to include food, music and a discussion of upcoming events and opportunities for giving in support of them.
I had heard a little discussion about a party, but had no idea the newsletter was being sent, or even that a firm date had been set, until the email surreptitiously showed up in my inbox at home. I’d been home for a couple of days with a sick child.
There was an odd title at the top of the email. I recognized it as what was to be the evening’s “theme”. Unveiled, Restored, United. Nobody ever DID figure out exactly what that meant, by the way, and it wasn’t explained at the event. I’m sure Boss intended to enlighten us, but he got off on a tangent that night, and the audience was left hanging…
Anyway, as I scrolled to the bottom half of that email page, I was appalled, and wondered WHO had been given the go-ahead to send this dispatch. There was a HUGE wedding picture of Zilla splayed over Boss’ shoulder with the caption: “Please also join us in celebrating the marriage of (Boss and Bridezilla). We look forward to sharing the evening with you. God Bless!” I knew that Boss’ family had shared his bafflement that there wasn’t a bigger monetary take on the wedding day, so I guessed that one of them had volunteered to help with the event email and slid in the part about celebrating the marriage without the knowledge of the newlyweds, who would surely be aghast at the implication that they were having a second reception in the same locale where their wedding had taken place a few weeks prior.
Turned out I was TOTALLY off base. The couple had indeed cooked this up THEMSELVES. Boss and Zilla had been collectively thinking of a way to allow all those inadvertently uniformed potential wedding guests a second chance to demonstrate, in a tangible way, their delight about the union. Cha-ching. Their consensus was that this little email addendum was a very polished and subtle way to suggest that it wasn’t too late to endow their new household with a wedding gift. In addition to our elist, copies of this invitation were posted on the doors of our corporate offices, and horror of horrors, a press release was even sent to the local paper. To prove that the event was a BIG deal, it had an RSVP deadline.
As I said, I was appalled by the boorishness. Obviously others were as well. By the evening of the event, two weeks later, I think there were only about 30 RSVPs instead of the hundreds Boss expected. A large chunk of those coming were Boss’ family members, with the remainder being made up of a smattering of supporters and other folks whose curiosity had gotten the best of them , along with some of my family, and a few stragglers. There are ALWAYS a few stragglers.
By the night of the affair, I had come down with the same virus that had afflicted my kids a couple of weeks earlier, so sadly I couldn’t go. DH had to keep me up to speed via text message that night.
A GIFT TABLE set up in the banquet room. With a money basket. Gag. Both nearly empty. Gag. Stouffer’s lasagnas, bagged salad, bread sticks and brownies on the menu. Gag. The standard pizza-alternative meal that everyone in our organization hates, but that no one dares to disparage, because Boss thinks it’s glorious. There was a little Kum-bay-yah-esque group singing, followed with a set by a ROCKING band and then some kind of disjointed inspirational address delivered by Boss. Even DH, who knows Boss well, was surprised at his total lack of focus. The expository texts from DH were comical. Boss’ train of thought had utterly jumped the tracks. At the very end of the evening, DH sent one last message: “(Boss) just made an announcement. His bride is with child.” Oh, boy. Here we go.
Monday at the office, I congratulated Boss in person. “Were you surprised?” he prodded.
“I already knew, actually.” I was immediately sorry I said that, for he seemed a little deflated.
“When did you find out?” He must have thought one of his siblings let the secret slip.
“Oh, about two weeks ago.”
Obviously puzzled, Boss exclaimed, “Two WEEKS; but Zilla and I just found out a couple of days ago!”
“I know,” I said, as I shrugged, smiled compassionately, turned on my heel and walked out of his office.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” right? You’ve heard the old adage. Likewise, I’ve noticed that certain deficient elements of Boss’ and Zilla’s character appear as recurrent themes in our stories. Like obliviousness, entitlement, and lack of preparation.
You’ll recall that soon after Zilla and Boss returned from their honeymoon, as Zilla crammed her first and last day of employment with our organization into a single 10-day period, our heroine was feeling increasingly ill. Every few days was punctuated with a trip to an immediate care facility or the local emergency room, depending on the perceived severity of Zilla’s symptoms.
She really WAS feeling puny, I’ll grant her that. First her UTI, which caused intense pelvic pain and later morphed into a mild kidney infection. Then she had a little stomach bug, followed by the steady development of a head cold. On the heels of their return home, she had the notorious ovulation experience, after which the aforementioned cold settled in her chest and created a nasty, lingering cough. And THEN, she began to suffer from some hauntingly familiar (to ME) flu-like symptoms that compounded her misery. I guessed she was pregnant even before she burst through the front door of our office one evening and made a nauseous beeline for the porcelain bowl in the ladies’ room.
Zilla was convinced she would surely die of her mysterious and debilitating ailment. I knew that my pulling her aside and informing her that I suspected she was PREGNANT would probably not end well, so I kept my yap shut. Especially after Zilla’s mass email debacle, and the account password shut-out, and the double-paid bills muddle. Zilla would probably think I was trying to exact some sort of revenge for making a disaster of my nice organized office procedures. Besides, I knew she’d eventually figure out her delicate condition on her own.
After a fair number of unsatisfying clinic and ER visits, Zilla and Boss took matters into their own hands. They completely forsook modern medicine and had enlisted Boss’ favorite alternative homeopathic/naturopathic/herbal guru to guide Zilla through a lemon juice fast, charcoal cleanse and super vitamin bulk-up as a last gasp effort to rid her body of whatever ghastly and insidious germs had invaded her system.
All became strangely quiet on the office front. The desk that Zilla had meticulously sanitized sat empty, its array of undisturbed disinfecting products a tacit reminder that surface underneath was falling victim to the degeneration of time and unsterile air particles, and that her careful efforts had been essentially futile. She never came back to the office as a staff member. We kept her desk empty for a while out of deference to her, but it was for naught. Boss was frequently absent, pressed into service as Zilla’s nurse.
In the meantime, the ever-active Boss and his family had been amassing a list of key associates and acquaintances who had curiously slipped through the cracks of being issued an invitation to the wedding. As the wedding plans had been going forward, there were about a BAZILLION people whom we staff knew Boss would want to witness the ceremony. Since there was no time for formal invitations, they all had to be notified via phone or email, or in person. Boss, being the control-freak micromanager that he is, wanted the honor of making all these notifications PERSONALLY. Boss gets a real charge out of shock value, and he wanted to hear or see the stunned reaction HIMSELF as each listener learned that Boss was getting married in TWO WEEKS to a stranger they’d never laid eyes on.
It quite frankly became somewhat of an uncomfortable situation for our staff in the weeks preceding the wedding. We’d been asked by Boss not to spread the news ourselves, so whenever we’d get a call, we couldn’t make any notifications beyond, “Hey, have you talked to Boss lately? I think you oughta talk to Boss.” There were literally THOUSANDS of people who needed to learn this matrimonial news to prevent hurt feelings, but our hands were tied.
So, do the math. Two weeks and change to prepare for the wedding. Even though Boss talks on the phone several hours per day, he had quite a few details to attend to, plus a time-consuming major event to prepare for which was totally unrelated to the speedily approaching ceremony. When Boss talks on the phone, he typically doesn’t get right to the point, and as a result spends at least 15-20 minutes on each call, sometimes more. So even if he was able to reach 10 or 12 new people per day with the blessed news, he was still going to fall far short of the thousands he had intended. And that’s just what happened.
As near the ceremony as the very afternoon of, Boss was calling me asking, “Did you tell Yoohoo and Yahoo and Yayhoo? How about Skeezix? Could you give them a call and let them know?” Okay Dude, your wedding is in less than two hours. How tacky is that, for your office assistant to extend an emergency telephone wedding invitation to a person who has erroneously harbored the thought that they might be your close buddy? Fine tribute to friendship there, old chum. Yessiree.
Bottom line, although the attendance was quite remarkable for a slap-dash affair, it wasn’t even CLOSE to what MIGHT have been the turnout if there had been time for a REAL engagement period that included LEGITIMATE wedding planning. Of course, lack of invited guests created one other lamentable result: a shortage of wedding gifts. Now, the table at the venue was piled high, don’t get me wrong. But Boss didn’t turn nearly the cash profit he was expecting on the wedding. He seemed rather bewildered when he told me that he and Zilla basically broke even on their honeymoon. That’s presumably not ALL they broke , but I go off the point.
Our usual customary business at the office valiantly carried on. A little less than one month after the wedding, our newly resurrected email list got a heartfelt summons to an “evening of celebration.” At the top of the newsletter was a brief agenda of the evening’s festivities, which were to include food, music and a discussion of upcoming events and opportunities for giving in support of them.
I had heard a little discussion about a party, but had no idea the newsletter was being sent, or even that a firm date had been set, until the email surreptitiously showed up in my inbox at home. I’d been home for a couple of days with a sick child.
There was an odd title at the top of the email. I recognized it as what was to be the evening’s “theme”. Unveiled, Restored, United. Nobody ever DID figure out exactly what that meant, by the way, and it wasn’t explained at the event. I’m sure Boss intended to enlighten us, but he got off on a tangent that night, and the audience was left hanging…
Anyway, as I scrolled to the bottom half of that email page, I was appalled, and wondered WHO had been given the go-ahead to send this dispatch. There was a HUGE wedding picture of Zilla splayed over Boss’ shoulder with the caption: “Please also join us in celebrating the marriage of (Boss and Bridezilla). We look forward to sharing the evening with you. God Bless!” I knew that Boss’ family had shared his bafflement that there wasn’t a bigger monetary take on the wedding day, so I guessed that one of them had volunteered to help with the event email and slid in the part about celebrating the marriage without the knowledge of the newlyweds, who would surely be aghast at the implication that they were having a second reception in the same locale where their wedding had taken place a few weeks prior.
Turned out I was TOTALLY off base. The couple had indeed cooked this up THEMSELVES. Boss and Zilla had been collectively thinking of a way to allow all those inadvertently uniformed potential wedding guests a second chance to demonstrate, in a tangible way, their delight about the union. Cha-ching. Their consensus was that this little email addendum was a very polished and subtle way to suggest that it wasn’t too late to endow their new household with a wedding gift. In addition to our elist, copies of this invitation were posted on the doors of our corporate offices, and horror of horrors, a press release was even sent to the local paper. To prove that the event was a BIG deal, it had an RSVP deadline.
As I said, I was appalled by the boorishness. Obviously others were as well. By the evening of the event, two weeks later, I think there were only about 30 RSVPs instead of the hundreds Boss expected. A large chunk of those coming were Boss’ family members, with the remainder being made up of a smattering of supporters and other folks whose curiosity had gotten the best of them , along with some of my family, and a few stragglers. There are ALWAYS a few stragglers.
By the night of the affair, I had come down with the same virus that had afflicted my kids a couple of weeks earlier, so sadly I couldn’t go. DH had to keep me up to speed via text message that night.
A GIFT TABLE set up in the banquet room. With a money basket. Gag. Both nearly empty. Gag. Stouffer’s lasagnas, bagged salad, bread sticks and brownies on the menu. Gag. The standard pizza-alternative meal that everyone in our organization hates, but that no one dares to disparage, because Boss thinks it’s glorious. There was a little Kum-bay-yah-esque group singing, followed with a set by a ROCKING band and then some kind of disjointed inspirational address delivered by Boss. Even DH, who knows Boss well, was surprised at his total lack of focus. The expository texts from DH were comical. Boss’ train of thought had utterly jumped the tracks. At the very end of the evening, DH sent one last message: “(Boss) just made an announcement. His bride is with child.” Oh, boy. Here we go.
Monday at the office, I congratulated Boss in person. “Were you surprised?” he prodded.
“I already knew, actually.” I was immediately sorry I said that, for he seemed a little deflated.
“When did you find out?” He must have thought one of his siblings let the secret slip.
“Oh, about two weeks ago.”
Obviously puzzled, Boss exclaimed, “Two WEEKS; but Zilla and I just found out a couple of days ago!”
“I know,” I said, as I shrugged, smiled compassionately, turned on my heel and walked out of his office.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Appendix II- The Official Pregzilla FAQ: Part Deux
In answer to the incredible outpouring of nosy readers crying for additional information, for your schadenfruende pleasure….another FAQ!
1. What's the timeline here, or are you reporting them in real time? I’m gonna say that the best way to tell is to read the context of the chapter. Much of it has had a brief time to season, some of it is fresh, but absolutely NOTHING regarding Zilla is more than a year old. Boss and Pregzilla are just approaching their one year anniversary. Not of marriage. Of MEETING. Their wedding anniversary isn’t until mid-fall.
2.I am dying to know what kind of business this is. Really, I am. Please rephrase this in the form of a question. But I still won’t answer it. At least not precisely.:D
3.How old is this girl again? Emotionally, mentally or chronologically? She’s been on the earth for just shy of 26 years. I see a lot of reference to the age difference between Boss and Zilla but I don't recall hearing exactly what the difference is. Care to share? About 13 years. That may not sound like THAT much, but trust me… Although, to tell you the truth, I can’t put my finger on what WOULD be an acceptable age difference for either one of them.
4.And this chick is like a dang CHILD. Who cleans up after her?? Why Boss, naturally. It’s a very literal, “You made your bed and now you have to sleep in it,” dealie.
5.Did boss ever stop to think that the dream he had years ago about a "bride"... might NOT have actually been the "literal", marrying kind??? You’re kidding, right? Boss is probably the most literal person I’ve ever met. Literally. (And I hope this post isn't removed for overuse of the word "literal" and its forms.)
6. These questions may have been adequately answered in a previous chapter or FAQ, but just in case not: Do you think they will divorce? No, I really doubt it. On second thought, maybe doubt is too strong a word. Less than 30% chance? Is there any chance it isn't boss's baby? Pretty sure that Boss is the baker that put the bun in Zilla’s oven. Not an eyewitness or anything, thank God, but the explosive ovulation story was a pretty good clue. Can we start a pool to see how long the marriage lasts, or has Vegas already started one? Unless you’re very young, and not planning on touching any potential windfall until retirement, I’d suggest a less risky investment. Boss and Zilla are probably in it for the long haul. And a LONG haul it may prove to be.
7.Zilla must have worked before, right? Yes, as a salesgirl. In retail. Where I’m not persuaded her 80 words per minute ever came into play, except as a threat, perhaps. As in, “You certainly must appreciate me working here for minimum wage, because someone of my skill level could definitely leave you in my dust and go elsewhere for a job making a king’s salary.” Or something like that, right? Maybe she also had other jobs, but I haven’t caught wind of any.
8.Didn't you know? Babies pee, poop and puke! How could someone expect Princess 'Zilla to handle all those bodily fluids? Maybe she did the flour baby project in middle school, but if her resulting proficiency in parenting can be compared to the usefulness of the math skills she gained during that same time period, baby Speedway is in trouble. And flour doesn’t have bodily fluids anyway.
9.Just wait until her birth plan goes down the drain, or the baby gets colic or something. Whatever will she do? First, she’ll blame Boss for getting her into this mess. Then she’ll call her mother, who will make a commotion like she’s helping, but whose fragile health will prevent her from providing any real aid. Then Boss will rally his family, who will rush to his rescue, but from whom Zilla will recoil like they have rabies. Pretty sure she won’t call MEEEE (primarily because I've had so little experience), so I’m good.
10.What TV show was going to let Bridezilla sing?? Characteristically, I will refuse to name names on this one as well. In the interest of hilarity, however, if you’re good with a Google search and would like to attempt to hunt down this information on your own, I’d start with terms like “air-conditioned dog house” or “incarcerated televangelist.” That oughta point you in the right general direction. And taken into account with all the other details of this saga, it both fits right in and is screamingly funny.
11.Did you change the passwords BACK after the username and password fiasco?? To my personal accounts? Immediately. To the business accounts? I change those regularly too, as a matter of course. And I make sure Boss has a copy. But he never knows where it is, so technically, I’m still the only one with passwords.
12.So how does one go about cleaning up a spammer reputation to once again do business through emailings? You know, if you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have been able to walk you through the entire process. But that email list was a responsibility that Boss evidently entrusted to Zilla, or maybe something that they worked on together. I let THEM handle it. It was their mess. Thankfully, they didn’t ask for my input, as I might have given it to them. Somehow, they must have gotten it worked out with the email vendor. I didn’t ask, they didn’t tell.
13.Wow, how did you not kill...I mean, yell at her?! At the actual time, I think I was just more stunned than anything. It did, however, make me feel vindicated for every error and lapse in judgment since my first day of employment. They all kinda paled in comparison, ya know?
14.Did your teeth hurt from grinding them together in an attempt to not blurt out every comment going through your mind? Even before I had this cathartic outlet, I haven’t let myself get TOO worked up about all this. Boss and Zilla take themselves SOOOO very seriously, and I so DON’T. You must understand my personality, I mean, I just HAVE to see the humor. And with a joint like this, there’s a lot of humor to see!
15.Yikes! I am curious as well, how is/was this handled? (Meaning the trouble Zilla created on her first day at the office.) With kid gloves, obviously, because she is the future mother of the baby Speedway. I overheard that there are still plans for her to come aboard at some time in the nebulous future, because she has had a new office chair reserved for her. A whole chair.
16.Boss was LATE 1/2 hour because of Zilla being up? Oh my, I guess the meetings will be after lunch when the baby is born! There is no short answer to this question/statement, and the following is a mini-chapter in itself, but this is our typical scenario: Maybe you’re familiar with organizations who schedule their staff meetings to end before 9 am, so as not to cut into potential business calls??? Well, we’re not like that. At all.
We USED to have our meetings scheduled to begin AT 9 am, sharp. Sadly, because several of our employees, including Boss, had immense trouble making it in that early, we usually ended up actually starting the meeting at around 10 am.
Boss got the bright idea that he’d like to turn over a new leaf and give us all a time management makeover. Did he decide that we should choose a meeting time that wouldn’t conflict with normal business hours, so that we could always hit the ground running and get as much accomplished each day as possible? Nope.
Did he at least demand that everyone be in the building and ready to go by 8:30 or 8:45 am on staff meeting days, so that our gatherings could commence on the dot at 9 am? Guess again.
He opted instead to CHANGE the meeting time to 10 am, since that’s when we always met by default anyway. So that our organization would look like we had it all together and were meeting ON TIME. Only Boss made the mistake of making an announcement to that effect. No remarkable proclamation, just a simple, “Hey, instead of 9, we’ll be changing the time of our staff meetings to 10 am from now on.”
Therefore, the employees who used to arrive for our 9 am meeting at 10 am have stepped it up, and currently arrive for our 10 am meeting by 11 am. Not surprisingly, when most folks are walking through the door at 11 am, they just GOT THERE, for Pete’s sakes, and aren’t yet ready to rush right in and sit down for a MEETING, so they unload their gear, chat with their co-workers, fire up their computers, check their email, grab a refreshing beverage… So the meetings typically begin at a time somewhat before noon. Also not surprisingly, there’s no time limit on these puppies, so they end when they end. Just in time for me to head home, usually.
But since I’ve been there for at least 2.5 hours before everyone else got there anyway, I’m able to keep up with my work. Oh, so to answer your question: See, we typically don’t HAVE lunch on staff meeting days. You know, because the meeting runs right THROUGH lunchtime. I guess if the meeting started AFTER lunch, we might eat. Or maybe I should suggest that we hold an organizational-wide fast on staff meeting days until we can be on TIME for something?
But since we already ARE, technically, fasting on those days, I’m not sure what good it would do. Didn’t realize you’d asked such a loaded question, did you?
17.I guess poor spelling runs in the Famalee, too, eh? Without any ignominy whatsoever. I mean the stinkin misspelled word can be staring them ALL in the FACE and they’ll never even pick up on it. There was a mass email sent out this past weekend, announcing an important organizational event. The NAME of our business was misspelled in the subject line of the email. HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN??? And how do you not NOTICE it if it does?????
I still remember an olden missive of organizational gratitude that offered heartfelt thanks to Chik-o-fil. CHIK-O-FIL!!!! (Say that out loud, please.) When you are proofreading what you’ve typed out, doesn’t your brain screech to a grinding halt when you read over that?? Don’t you giggle, hit the delete button and then carefully retype “Chick-Fil-A”??? Clearly not.
18.Does your organization have a Board of Directors that needs answering to? Yes and no. Yes, there is a Board of Directors, but no, they evidently don’t need answering to. For my part, I ensure that everything financially is completely above reproach, and that’s my bag. Seriously, I would resign if there was any type of impropriety. There ain’t. There’s just some very loveable flakes. And nuts. Heck, there’s a whole case of granola.
19.It is the dang baby pool and infant accoutrements in the meeting room that does me. Is he serious? Since the half dozen fluffy tapestry-like set of archangel pillows Zilla piled in Boss’ office before the wedding didn’t make their way OUT of the office until just this month, I’m not looking for these items to sprout wings and fly away any time soon.
Is it not a place of business? Since when do conference rooms come with a swing and a changing table???? Something tells me they aren’t considered PERMANENT, but based on the longevity of the aforementioned pillows in Boss’ office, temporary can last quite awhile.
There has been a facility-wide cleanup and renovation in process for about a month now. Our new VP is pretty aggressive in his efforts to effect professional-looking change to our offices. He’d done a pretty good job up to now, securing us some new furniture, getting shed of some of the shabby fixtures I had tried in vain many moons ago to cause to disappear; after all his recent efforts, I imagine he about FLIPPED when he saw the conference room looking like an infant day care. And I’m not sure when VP’s neat organizational flow chart on the white board was replaced with Boss & Zilla’s baby birthdate poll. Maybe VP has given up, flipped out, and joined the dark side.
20.We gotta have our Zilla fixes, you know? So I’m coming to understand… Who would have guessed? I can’t believe you guys really are liking this stuff!!
Of course, to be honest, I guess if I wasn't writing it, I’d be reading it, too. (Which to me, sounds scarily similar to “I’m always either asleep or awake,” so I’ll step away from that sentence.)
But I'm thinking if the whole non-profit bookkeeping thing doesn’t pan out for me, maybe I could have something to fall back on?
21.If this morphs into a book/movie along the lines of Devil Wears Prada, will you invite all your fishie friends to the premiere? Absolutely. Front row seats.
22.Could you imagine if they read any of this??? ? Wow. Yeah, the thought has crossed my mind. But it is such good therapy to have a creative outlet for this madness, it’s worth the calculated risk.
Oh, on second thought it sounds like they are probably so unaware they could read these stories word for word and never even suspect it's themselves. Speaking of word for word, that is almost exactly what my DH said.
23.Can we have a babyname contest? Oh, LETS!!! Who wants to start the post? Do we know the future name of the babezilla? In the true spirit of literary foreshadowing, there WILL be a future Pregzilla chapter on this VERY subject. Stay tuned...
1. What's the timeline here, or are you reporting them in real time? I’m gonna say that the best way to tell is to read the context of the chapter. Much of it has had a brief time to season, some of it is fresh, but absolutely NOTHING regarding Zilla is more than a year old. Boss and Pregzilla are just approaching their one year anniversary. Not of marriage. Of MEETING. Their wedding anniversary isn’t until mid-fall.
2.I am dying to know what kind of business this is. Really, I am. Please rephrase this in the form of a question. But I still won’t answer it. At least not precisely.:D
3.How old is this girl again? Emotionally, mentally or chronologically? She’s been on the earth for just shy of 26 years. I see a lot of reference to the age difference between Boss and Zilla but I don't recall hearing exactly what the difference is. Care to share? About 13 years. That may not sound like THAT much, but trust me… Although, to tell you the truth, I can’t put my finger on what WOULD be an acceptable age difference for either one of them.
4.And this chick is like a dang CHILD. Who cleans up after her?? Why Boss, naturally. It’s a very literal, “You made your bed and now you have to sleep in it,” dealie.
5.Did boss ever stop to think that the dream he had years ago about a "bride"... might NOT have actually been the "literal", marrying kind??? You’re kidding, right? Boss is probably the most literal person I’ve ever met. Literally. (And I hope this post isn't removed for overuse of the word "literal" and its forms.)
6. These questions may have been adequately answered in a previous chapter or FAQ, but just in case not: Do you think they will divorce? No, I really doubt it. On second thought, maybe doubt is too strong a word. Less than 30% chance? Is there any chance it isn't boss's baby? Pretty sure that Boss is the baker that put the bun in Zilla’s oven. Not an eyewitness or anything, thank God, but the explosive ovulation story was a pretty good clue. Can we start a pool to see how long the marriage lasts, or has Vegas already started one? Unless you’re very young, and not planning on touching any potential windfall until retirement, I’d suggest a less risky investment. Boss and Zilla are probably in it for the long haul. And a LONG haul it may prove to be.
7.Zilla must have worked before, right? Yes, as a salesgirl. In retail. Where I’m not persuaded her 80 words per minute ever came into play, except as a threat, perhaps. As in, “You certainly must appreciate me working here for minimum wage, because someone of my skill level could definitely leave you in my dust and go elsewhere for a job making a king’s salary.” Or something like that, right? Maybe she also had other jobs, but I haven’t caught wind of any.
8.Didn't you know? Babies pee, poop and puke! How could someone expect Princess 'Zilla to handle all those bodily fluids? Maybe she did the flour baby project in middle school, but if her resulting proficiency in parenting can be compared to the usefulness of the math skills she gained during that same time period, baby Speedway is in trouble. And flour doesn’t have bodily fluids anyway.
9.Just wait until her birth plan goes down the drain, or the baby gets colic or something. Whatever will she do? First, she’ll blame Boss for getting her into this mess. Then she’ll call her mother, who will make a commotion like she’s helping, but whose fragile health will prevent her from providing any real aid. Then Boss will rally his family, who will rush to his rescue, but from whom Zilla will recoil like they have rabies. Pretty sure she won’t call MEEEE (primarily because I've had so little experience), so I’m good.
10.What TV show was going to let Bridezilla sing?? Characteristically, I will refuse to name names on this one as well. In the interest of hilarity, however, if you’re good with a Google search and would like to attempt to hunt down this information on your own, I’d start with terms like “air-conditioned dog house” or “incarcerated televangelist.” That oughta point you in the right general direction. And taken into account with all the other details of this saga, it both fits right in and is screamingly funny.
11.Did you change the passwords BACK after the username and password fiasco?? To my personal accounts? Immediately. To the business accounts? I change those regularly too, as a matter of course. And I make sure Boss has a copy. But he never knows where it is, so technically, I’m still the only one with passwords.
12.So how does one go about cleaning up a spammer reputation to once again do business through emailings? You know, if you’d asked me that a year ago, I would have been able to walk you through the entire process. But that email list was a responsibility that Boss evidently entrusted to Zilla, or maybe something that they worked on together. I let THEM handle it. It was their mess. Thankfully, they didn’t ask for my input, as I might have given it to them. Somehow, they must have gotten it worked out with the email vendor. I didn’t ask, they didn’t tell.
13.Wow, how did you not kill...I mean, yell at her?! At the actual time, I think I was just more stunned than anything. It did, however, make me feel vindicated for every error and lapse in judgment since my first day of employment. They all kinda paled in comparison, ya know?
14.Did your teeth hurt from grinding them together in an attempt to not blurt out every comment going through your mind? Even before I had this cathartic outlet, I haven’t let myself get TOO worked up about all this. Boss and Zilla take themselves SOOOO very seriously, and I so DON’T. You must understand my personality, I mean, I just HAVE to see the humor. And with a joint like this, there’s a lot of humor to see!
15.Yikes! I am curious as well, how is/was this handled? (Meaning the trouble Zilla created on her first day at the office.) With kid gloves, obviously, because she is the future mother of the baby Speedway. I overheard that there are still plans for her to come aboard at some time in the nebulous future, because she has had a new office chair reserved for her. A whole chair.
16.Boss was LATE 1/2 hour because of Zilla being up? Oh my, I guess the meetings will be after lunch when the baby is born! There is no short answer to this question/statement, and the following is a mini-chapter in itself, but this is our typical scenario: Maybe you’re familiar with organizations who schedule their staff meetings to end before 9 am, so as not to cut into potential business calls??? Well, we’re not like that. At all.
We USED to have our meetings scheduled to begin AT 9 am, sharp. Sadly, because several of our employees, including Boss, had immense trouble making it in that early, we usually ended up actually starting the meeting at around 10 am.
Boss got the bright idea that he’d like to turn over a new leaf and give us all a time management makeover. Did he decide that we should choose a meeting time that wouldn’t conflict with normal business hours, so that we could always hit the ground running and get as much accomplished each day as possible? Nope.
Did he at least demand that everyone be in the building and ready to go by 8:30 or 8:45 am on staff meeting days, so that our gatherings could commence on the dot at 9 am? Guess again.
He opted instead to CHANGE the meeting time to 10 am, since that’s when we always met by default anyway. So that our organization would look like we had it all together and were meeting ON TIME. Only Boss made the mistake of making an announcement to that effect. No remarkable proclamation, just a simple, “Hey, instead of 9, we’ll be changing the time of our staff meetings to 10 am from now on.”
Therefore, the employees who used to arrive for our 9 am meeting at 10 am have stepped it up, and currently arrive for our 10 am meeting by 11 am. Not surprisingly, when most folks are walking through the door at 11 am, they just GOT THERE, for Pete’s sakes, and aren’t yet ready to rush right in and sit down for a MEETING, so they unload their gear, chat with their co-workers, fire up their computers, check their email, grab a refreshing beverage… So the meetings typically begin at a time somewhat before noon. Also not surprisingly, there’s no time limit on these puppies, so they end when they end. Just in time for me to head home, usually.
But since I’ve been there for at least 2.5 hours before everyone else got there anyway, I’m able to keep up with my work. Oh, so to answer your question: See, we typically don’t HAVE lunch on staff meeting days. You know, because the meeting runs right THROUGH lunchtime. I guess if the meeting started AFTER lunch, we might eat. Or maybe I should suggest that we hold an organizational-wide fast on staff meeting days until we can be on TIME for something?
But since we already ARE, technically, fasting on those days, I’m not sure what good it would do. Didn’t realize you’d asked such a loaded question, did you?
17.I guess poor spelling runs in the Famalee, too, eh? Without any ignominy whatsoever. I mean the stinkin misspelled word can be staring them ALL in the FACE and they’ll never even pick up on it. There was a mass email sent out this past weekend, announcing an important organizational event. The NAME of our business was misspelled in the subject line of the email. HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN??? And how do you not NOTICE it if it does?????
I still remember an olden missive of organizational gratitude that offered heartfelt thanks to Chik-o-fil. CHIK-O-FIL!!!! (Say that out loud, please.) When you are proofreading what you’ve typed out, doesn’t your brain screech to a grinding halt when you read over that?? Don’t you giggle, hit the delete button and then carefully retype “Chick-Fil-A”??? Clearly not.
18.Does your organization have a Board of Directors that needs answering to? Yes and no. Yes, there is a Board of Directors, but no, they evidently don’t need answering to. For my part, I ensure that everything financially is completely above reproach, and that’s my bag. Seriously, I would resign if there was any type of impropriety. There ain’t. There’s just some very loveable flakes. And nuts. Heck, there’s a whole case of granola.
19.It is the dang baby pool and infant accoutrements in the meeting room that does me. Is he serious? Since the half dozen fluffy tapestry-like set of archangel pillows Zilla piled in Boss’ office before the wedding didn’t make their way OUT of the office until just this month, I’m not looking for these items to sprout wings and fly away any time soon.
Is it not a place of business? Since when do conference rooms come with a swing and a changing table???? Something tells me they aren’t considered PERMANENT, but based on the longevity of the aforementioned pillows in Boss’ office, temporary can last quite awhile.
There has been a facility-wide cleanup and renovation in process for about a month now. Our new VP is pretty aggressive in his efforts to effect professional-looking change to our offices. He’d done a pretty good job up to now, securing us some new furniture, getting shed of some of the shabby fixtures I had tried in vain many moons ago to cause to disappear; after all his recent efforts, I imagine he about FLIPPED when he saw the conference room looking like an infant day care. And I’m not sure when VP’s neat organizational flow chart on the white board was replaced with Boss & Zilla’s baby birthdate poll. Maybe VP has given up, flipped out, and joined the dark side.
20.We gotta have our Zilla fixes, you know? So I’m coming to understand… Who would have guessed? I can’t believe you guys really are liking this stuff!!
Of course, to be honest, I guess if I wasn't writing it, I’d be reading it, too. (Which to me, sounds scarily similar to “I’m always either asleep or awake,” so I’ll step away from that sentence.)
But I'm thinking if the whole non-profit bookkeeping thing doesn’t pan out for me, maybe I could have something to fall back on?
21.If this morphs into a book/movie along the lines of Devil Wears Prada, will you invite all your fishie friends to the premiere? Absolutely. Front row seats.
22.Could you imagine if they read any of this??? ? Wow. Yeah, the thought has crossed my mind. But it is such good therapy to have a creative outlet for this madness, it’s worth the calculated risk.
Oh, on second thought it sounds like they are probably so unaware they could read these stories word for word and never even suspect it's themselves. Speaking of word for word, that is almost exactly what my DH said.
23.Can we have a babyname contest? Oh, LETS!!! Who wants to start the post? Do we know the future name of the babezilla? In the true spirit of literary foreshadowing, there WILL be a future Pregzilla chapter on this VERY subject. Stay tuned...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Chapter 15 - Pregzilla: Time Will Tell...
You see, one of the primary accompanying reasons I have trouble swallowing the concept that the Golden Child might be early is my strongly-held belief that SO much of what we are is hereditary. I mean come on, you’ve seen it. Your own kids, having never even come in contact with the worst qualities of your persona, seem uncontrollably inclined to pick them up anyway. Am I right?
Take promptness, for instance. I don’t know Zilla well enough, really to make a concrete judgment as to her time management skills, but having known Boss for several years, I can say with absolute certainty that he is not a punctual person. Since Zilla hasn’t yet utterly gone NUTS about Boss’ lack of adherence to scheduling, I can only assume she condones it. I mean, her own WEDDING was an hour late! Consequently, I have trouble imagining that his spawn will be ahead of schedule, or actually anywhere adjacent to his due date of August 7. But time, of course, will tell.
Boss does not adhere to the conventional restraints imposed by our time-oriented US culture. Which is not to say that he hails from a foreign land. A foreign PLANET, maybe, but not a foreign land. He is American born and bred, all the way.
Admittedly, I have not historically been the most well-timed individual on earth. I have made great strides in the punctuality department, but in the past, it has not been unusual for me to be a couple of minutes late. Or maybe five, at the most. Not acceptable, rude to those who are waiting for me, unprofessional and all that. Like I said, I’ve been working on that for decades, and have met with some real success. I’m actually usually EARLY now, thank you very much.
So, given my struggles with promptness, it was quite a shock to enter into employ for someone who is even worse at being Johnny-on-the-Spot than I was. I mean, Boss is NEVER on time. Unless he’s meeting someone whom he considers to be just EXTREMELY more important and influential than he is , which is not often. And which makes his lack of timely arrival to be even MORE offensive to the average Joe, because you are slapped in the face with the fact. You know, the fact that suggests that you aren’t important enough for him to trouble himself to be on time for your appointment.
There are a number of excuses that Boss gives for his tardiness. It usually boils down to Divine appointments. So basically he routinely blames his overdue arrivals on God, which is just WRONG. And tends to make us all look like blundering buffoons, but then he covers it up by being so unfailingly charming and filled with compassion, that his tardiness gets overlooked. Which is nothing short of AMAZING to watch.
Clients are increasingly ticked when Boss is a no-show. Irritation grows by the minute. So irked are they, that when Boss finally comes whirling in, they’re hopping mad. Thinly veiled fury. Nonetheless Boss privately convenes with them, and somehow, by the time they take their leave, they’re thinking Boss is the greatest thing since indoor plumbing and they can barely contain themselves until they can come back and wait impatiently on Boss again at some meticulously scheduled but totally unlikely time in the future. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m not talking that Boss is five or ten minutes late, either. Oh, no. NEVER earlier than fifteen minutes late, and that’s if he really likes you or esteems your time as very valuable . Typical timeframe? More like thirty minutes, anywhere up to TWO HOURS, under what he considers extenuating circumstances.
It doesn’t take much to be classified as an extenuating circumstance, either. Zilla “needed my help with some things.” (And I’ve got seven kids who needed help with some things too. Yet here I am, right on time. Go figure. Sorry to keep playing the personal family experience card, but some of these things just really chap my fanny. ) “I was up really late last night.” (See previous comment.) “I ran into XXX at the pancake house. It had been a long time and he needed some encouragement.” Well, yeah, Boss, we could have all used some encouragement too, as we chilled our flat butts waiting two hours for you to come direct the staff meeting.
And you might wonder why Boss has never been called to task for this before. It’s the heredity thing, I tell you. Many of the employees of our organization are also members of Boss’ family. Nepotism at its best. So when Boss isn’t on time, most of the other aforementioned employees aren’t even THERE yet, so they have no idea how late Boss is. The whole family is always late. That’s just the way they are. Everyone who waits for them hates it, becomes embittered against them and treats them differently, etc. Their children are penalized at school and on sports teams because of their tardiness, but because lateness is summarily excused by everyone in the bloodline, nobody accepts responsibility for it or accepts the fact, even remotely, that their lack of punctuality is to blame for any unsavory outcomes. Duh, people.
Time after time I’ve gotten panicked phone calls from folks who had a meeting with Boss (or a closely-related employee) that involved a stringent time constraint. And I usually find out later that Boss was “on his way” or that the employee in question did arrive by his/her own description “a few minutes late.” Just for the record, in my book, a FEW minutes is three or four, NOT THIRTY. The crazy thing is that our business is BASED on time and the keeping of appointments. I just don’t understand how it all seems to work out. But work out it does. I’m flummoxed.
Just this last week for example, Boss had an early appointment scheduled with a couple of clients. When I arrived in the office at my appointed time and checked voicemail, there was a message from these folks. At the time of the voicemail, they were in the parking lot, it was time for the appointment to be OVER, but they just wanted someone to know that they had been there. They were leaving. Yikes. Great way to run a business, Boss. Anyway, I walked back into the common area, and low and behold, THERE were these clients, an hour and a half after their original appointment time. Boss had gotten in touch with them, they had come BACK for another try at the meeting, and they were thanking Boss profusely for working them in. After Boss had been the one who had been the no-show. Believe it. It happens ALL the time. I dare say it would happen to YOU, if you were one of Boss’ clients. And you would be initially infuriated, but ultimately placated.
So Boss’ son being born EARLY??? This pregnancy has been a microcosm of the way Boss runs his whole life, the business, his marriage. Set in motion way too soon, before anyone was even vaguely ready. By the seats of their pants, if you will, but such a word picture is way too graphic for me, thanks all the same. Embarked upon with little regard for preparation or education, and with apparent disdain for good reason. Unrealistic and fantastical expectations out the wazoo, backed up by incredible and irrational statistics. Wild speculation, which will customarily far outpace the comparatively disappointing reality.
Bottom line: When Boss and Zilla say that their extraordinary Little Man will manifest himself ahead of schedule, I don’t bank on it. I predict he’ll be at least a day late and a dollar short just like dear old Dad.
In fact – DH’s secret prediction on the birthdate? August 14. By induction.
Take promptness, for instance. I don’t know Zilla well enough, really to make a concrete judgment as to her time management skills, but having known Boss for several years, I can say with absolute certainty that he is not a punctual person. Since Zilla hasn’t yet utterly gone NUTS about Boss’ lack of adherence to scheduling, I can only assume she condones it. I mean, her own WEDDING was an hour late! Consequently, I have trouble imagining that his spawn will be ahead of schedule, or actually anywhere adjacent to his due date of August 7. But time, of course, will tell.
Boss does not adhere to the conventional restraints imposed by our time-oriented US culture. Which is not to say that he hails from a foreign land. A foreign PLANET, maybe, but not a foreign land. He is American born and bred, all the way.
Admittedly, I have not historically been the most well-timed individual on earth. I have made great strides in the punctuality department, but in the past, it has not been unusual for me to be a couple of minutes late. Or maybe five, at the most. Not acceptable, rude to those who are waiting for me, unprofessional and all that. Like I said, I’ve been working on that for decades, and have met with some real success. I’m actually usually EARLY now, thank you very much.
So, given my struggles with promptness, it was quite a shock to enter into employ for someone who is even worse at being Johnny-on-the-Spot than I was. I mean, Boss is NEVER on time. Unless he’s meeting someone whom he considers to be just EXTREMELY more important and influential than he is , which is not often. And which makes his lack of timely arrival to be even MORE offensive to the average Joe, because you are slapped in the face with the fact. You know, the fact that suggests that you aren’t important enough for him to trouble himself to be on time for your appointment.
There are a number of excuses that Boss gives for his tardiness. It usually boils down to Divine appointments. So basically he routinely blames his overdue arrivals on God, which is just WRONG. And tends to make us all look like blundering buffoons, but then he covers it up by being so unfailingly charming and filled with compassion, that his tardiness gets overlooked. Which is nothing short of AMAZING to watch.
Clients are increasingly ticked when Boss is a no-show. Irritation grows by the minute. So irked are they, that when Boss finally comes whirling in, they’re hopping mad. Thinly veiled fury. Nonetheless Boss privately convenes with them, and somehow, by the time they take their leave, they’re thinking Boss is the greatest thing since indoor plumbing and they can barely contain themselves until they can come back and wait impatiently on Boss again at some meticulously scheduled but totally unlikely time in the future. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m not talking that Boss is five or ten minutes late, either. Oh, no. NEVER earlier than fifteen minutes late, and that’s if he really likes you or esteems your time as very valuable . Typical timeframe? More like thirty minutes, anywhere up to TWO HOURS, under what he considers extenuating circumstances.
It doesn’t take much to be classified as an extenuating circumstance, either. Zilla “needed my help with some things.” (And I’ve got seven kids who needed help with some things too. Yet here I am, right on time. Go figure. Sorry to keep playing the personal family experience card, but some of these things just really chap my fanny. ) “I was up really late last night.” (See previous comment.) “I ran into XXX at the pancake house. It had been a long time and he needed some encouragement.” Well, yeah, Boss, we could have all used some encouragement too, as we chilled our flat butts waiting two hours for you to come direct the staff meeting.
And you might wonder why Boss has never been called to task for this before. It’s the heredity thing, I tell you. Many of the employees of our organization are also members of Boss’ family. Nepotism at its best. So when Boss isn’t on time, most of the other aforementioned employees aren’t even THERE yet, so they have no idea how late Boss is. The whole family is always late. That’s just the way they are. Everyone who waits for them hates it, becomes embittered against them and treats them differently, etc. Their children are penalized at school and on sports teams because of their tardiness, but because lateness is summarily excused by everyone in the bloodline, nobody accepts responsibility for it or accepts the fact, even remotely, that their lack of punctuality is to blame for any unsavory outcomes. Duh, people.
Time after time I’ve gotten panicked phone calls from folks who had a meeting with Boss (or a closely-related employee) that involved a stringent time constraint. And I usually find out later that Boss was “on his way” or that the employee in question did arrive by his/her own description “a few minutes late.” Just for the record, in my book, a FEW minutes is three or four, NOT THIRTY. The crazy thing is that our business is BASED on time and the keeping of appointments. I just don’t understand how it all seems to work out. But work out it does. I’m flummoxed.
Just this last week for example, Boss had an early appointment scheduled with a couple of clients. When I arrived in the office at my appointed time and checked voicemail, there was a message from these folks. At the time of the voicemail, they were in the parking lot, it was time for the appointment to be OVER, but they just wanted someone to know that they had been there. They were leaving. Yikes. Great way to run a business, Boss. Anyway, I walked back into the common area, and low and behold, THERE were these clients, an hour and a half after their original appointment time. Boss had gotten in touch with them, they had come BACK for another try at the meeting, and they were thanking Boss profusely for working them in. After Boss had been the one who had been the no-show. Believe it. It happens ALL the time. I dare say it would happen to YOU, if you were one of Boss’ clients. And you would be initially infuriated, but ultimately placated.
So Boss’ son being born EARLY??? This pregnancy has been a microcosm of the way Boss runs his whole life, the business, his marriage. Set in motion way too soon, before anyone was even vaguely ready. By the seats of their pants, if you will, but such a word picture is way too graphic for me, thanks all the same. Embarked upon with little regard for preparation or education, and with apparent disdain for good reason. Unrealistic and fantastical expectations out the wazoo, backed up by incredible and irrational statistics. Wild speculation, which will customarily far outpace the comparatively disappointing reality.
Bottom line: When Boss and Zilla say that their extraordinary Little Man will manifest himself ahead of schedule, I don’t bank on it. I predict he’ll be at least a day late and a dollar short just like dear old Dad.
In fact – DH’s secret prediction on the birthdate? August 14. By induction.
Chapter 14 - Pregzilla: The Countdown
The baby chatter is ramping up at the office. After months of surprisingly little commentary on Zilla’s pregnancy, except by Zilla herself, our place of business is suddenly abuzz with hype.
Seems that Pregzilla is currently 80% effaced and 2 centimeters dilated. Having experienced only c-sections, and personally possessing a cervix tighter than a preacher in a 10 dollar suit, I don’t have a lot of familiarity with early effacement and dilation. I DO know, however, that it is possible to have quite a bit of both and still overshoot the due date. Not saying that’s going to happen, but in the real world, it’s quite possible.
Not in the curious universe of Boss and Pregzilla, however. Zilla has chosen July 14 (yes, that’s TOMORROW!!! ) as her superlarge, superhuman baby’s birthdate. This was even before they found out about the dilation and effacement, based solely on the fact that she was having Braxton-Hicks contractions. Just last week, I inquired about Zilla’s condition, and was filled in by Boss regarding some of her thought processes, none of which he is himself familiar enough with pregnancy to refute. And that’s okay, I mean it IS their first baby, after all. But, you know, there ARE books about pregnancy…. Most of them readily available at your local library. But, alas, you have to be a reader to want to pay a visit the library. I’m just saying.
Boss finally assigned an actual number to his progeny’s hugeness, the immense size that Zilla has emphasized during each of her most recent visits with me, and no doubt with the rest of humanity. Their colossally-sized infant is in the 55th percentile for size. I paused and eyed Boss to make sure I’d heard correctly. Come again? Yes, 55th percentile.
Did Zilla pass middle school math? Apparently she was off honing her marvelous keyboarding speed while the rest of her fellow scholars labored away to crack the percentile code. If she had mastered this bit of mathematical competence, Zilla would have been able to deduce that the 55th percentile puts junior smack-dab in the center of the prenatal size range, and not anywhere close to the mammoth we’ve been advised to expect. Just average. But of course, it would be blasphemous to say that out loud to anyone involved, so I’ll stay mum.
When I was chatting with Boss on the phone last week (he actually called ME, so I’m guessing he’s planning on the upcoming birth distracting Zilla from confiscating next month’s phone bill and discovering that he placed a call to a female not related by marriage or blood), he mentioned Zilla’s frequent Braxton-Hicks, and in the same breath said BOTH that he and Zilla knew they were just “practice” contractions AND that they believed the spasms to be an indication that labor and delivery are imminent, and that their doctor had said that Zilla was very VERY early with her Braxton-Hicks. Boss spent several minutes on this, obviously seeking affirmation of this additional piece of ammunition for the argument that the baby is coming, and SOON.
Boss is eager to collect eyewitness accounts of pregnancy, as long as they reinforce what he believes to be true. So I knew he wouldn’t want to hear about my Braxton-Hicks. It wouldn’t “mesh” with his current philosophy, ya know? So lemme tell YOU what I’ve learned. After birthing seven younguns, I am certain I don’t know everything about pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, I am absolutely sure that I know even LESS about human reproduction than I THOUGHT I knew as a brand-spankin’ first-time mom. But I know what I know, which is enough to realize that my unique encounters have no bearing on what Pregzilla or any other pregnant female can expect from their own pregnancies. But he kept talking about her contractions, and fishing for my assessment… UGGGGH.
And so I told him that I too, had met with the discomfort and initial fear and trepidation of Braxton-Hicks contractions. And then (gulp), I remarked that having Braxton-Hicks five or six weeks prior to estimated due date is not in any way unusual, nor does it suggest that labor is about to begin in earnest.
You see, Zilla and I have something in common. The SAME OB. A guy whom, after seven children and a miscarriage, I know pretty well. Well enough to know what he considers to be early Braxton-Hicks contractions, and well enough to know that there is no WAY he would have told Zilla that she was experiencing BH contractions ahead of schedule when they started only six week prior to her due date. Knew that for a fact. You see, once when I came in for my first prenatal visit at 12 weeks, long about my third pregnancy or so, and he felt my uterus tighten as he was doing an exam – THOSE were early Braxton-Hicks contractions. Doc was kind of amazed about that, and he told me so, and he also said there wasn’t anything WRONG with having them that early. But I didn’t share that info with Boss.
Zilla’s contractions are strong sometimes, Boss said. Almost uncomfortable even. Hmmmm, I can relate. And toward the end of my pregnancies, the last trimester or so, those stupid contractions would have me stopping what I was doing and breathing through them – and I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance. But that was just me.
Boss went on to say that all these Braxton-Hicks that Zilla is having are just achieving so much on her behalf and will make her labor so much shorter and easier and cause it to occur so much earlier than her due date that it will just be wonderful to behold. Oh, Boss. Oh, Zilla. I wish it were true, but sorry, not always. Maybe not EVER. Where I was concerned, those stupid things did NOTHING to prepare my body for delivery. They were just futile torment, because I never could dilate past 5 centimeters, even after 40 hours of labor. Have faith, the Braxton-Hicks did zippo for me. But I didn’t tell Boss that either.
In fact, I tried to bite my tongue altogether, but I had to comment. I just mumbled something about having lots and LOTS of Braxton-Hicks, for many months before the births of my children, and that they hadn’t been effective at ALL in speeding up or facilitating delivery. Even when they came five minutes apart for weeks on end. But that’s just me, I said.
Boss was offended. I could tell, because he was quiet there on the other end of the phone line. Silence is so rare where Boss is concerned that you tend to take note when it occurs. In a moment, he responded that just because I had my experience with Braxton-Hicks didn’t mean it would be that way with Zilla, and besides, this was her first baby. Which had been my point exactly. Since he’d pressed the issue, I was simply offering my view on the subject, to an obviously misled, inexperienced dad-to-be. One who had been probing for my outlook on the efficacy of incidental tightening of the uterus during pregnancy. I couldn’t help that my experience was totally different than the theory that he and Zilla had cooked up.
Honest. Oh, well. Boss and Zilla ended up spending that evening in the Family Life Center at the hospital. Her exam that morning had caused a little bleeding, Zilla was sure it was “time” (honestly understandable for a new mom), so they had to hang around the maternity unit until they could be talked into a later delivery date. They’d tried to pin down the doctor for a more definite idea of when junior would be making his entrance, but he wouldn’t fork over specifics. Spoil sport.
The whole baby-at-hand anxiety prompted a new fixture at the office though. We now have an entire 4’ x 5’ white board devoted to a Delivery Date Poll for Little Man. Right next to the changing table and baby swing, which are unaccountably present in our meeting room. The months of July and August are drawn in, and everyone who passes by is supposed to write his/her name on the date they guess the blessed event will take place. Zilla has already claimed July 14, Boss chose the 10th or the 22nd, and random other visitors have selected various dates up through mid-August. It somehow reminds me of a Super Bowl pool.
For my part, I’m loathe to enter a guess. Boss’ and Zilla’s militancy about the certainty of an early birth has taken all the usual fun out of the typical prenatal speculation. And also I’m not sure what the prize (or penalty, perhaps!) is for the winning guess. The honor of providing a year’s free babysitting to the new parents, perchance? Or maybe those six extra nipple shields from the shower registry!?
Seems that Pregzilla is currently 80% effaced and 2 centimeters dilated. Having experienced only c-sections, and personally possessing a cervix tighter than a preacher in a 10 dollar suit, I don’t have a lot of familiarity with early effacement and dilation. I DO know, however, that it is possible to have quite a bit of both and still overshoot the due date. Not saying that’s going to happen, but in the real world, it’s quite possible.
Not in the curious universe of Boss and Pregzilla, however. Zilla has chosen July 14 (yes, that’s TOMORROW!!! ) as her superlarge, superhuman baby’s birthdate. This was even before they found out about the dilation and effacement, based solely on the fact that she was having Braxton-Hicks contractions. Just last week, I inquired about Zilla’s condition, and was filled in by Boss regarding some of her thought processes, none of which he is himself familiar enough with pregnancy to refute. And that’s okay, I mean it IS their first baby, after all. But, you know, there ARE books about pregnancy…. Most of them readily available at your local library. But, alas, you have to be a reader to want to pay a visit the library. I’m just saying.
Boss finally assigned an actual number to his progeny’s hugeness, the immense size that Zilla has emphasized during each of her most recent visits with me, and no doubt with the rest of humanity. Their colossally-sized infant is in the 55th percentile for size. I paused and eyed Boss to make sure I’d heard correctly. Come again? Yes, 55th percentile.
Did Zilla pass middle school math? Apparently she was off honing her marvelous keyboarding speed while the rest of her fellow scholars labored away to crack the percentile code. If she had mastered this bit of mathematical competence, Zilla would have been able to deduce that the 55th percentile puts junior smack-dab in the center of the prenatal size range, and not anywhere close to the mammoth we’ve been advised to expect. Just average. But of course, it would be blasphemous to say that out loud to anyone involved, so I’ll stay mum.
When I was chatting with Boss on the phone last week (he actually called ME, so I’m guessing he’s planning on the upcoming birth distracting Zilla from confiscating next month’s phone bill and discovering that he placed a call to a female not related by marriage or blood), he mentioned Zilla’s frequent Braxton-Hicks, and in the same breath said BOTH that he and Zilla knew they were just “practice” contractions AND that they believed the spasms to be an indication that labor and delivery are imminent, and that their doctor had said that Zilla was very VERY early with her Braxton-Hicks. Boss spent several minutes on this, obviously seeking affirmation of this additional piece of ammunition for the argument that the baby is coming, and SOON.
Boss is eager to collect eyewitness accounts of pregnancy, as long as they reinforce what he believes to be true. So I knew he wouldn’t want to hear about my Braxton-Hicks. It wouldn’t “mesh” with his current philosophy, ya know? So lemme tell YOU what I’ve learned. After birthing seven younguns, I am certain I don’t know everything about pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, I am absolutely sure that I know even LESS about human reproduction than I THOUGHT I knew as a brand-spankin’ first-time mom. But I know what I know, which is enough to realize that my unique encounters have no bearing on what Pregzilla or any other pregnant female can expect from their own pregnancies. But he kept talking about her contractions, and fishing for my assessment… UGGGGH.
And so I told him that I too, had met with the discomfort and initial fear and trepidation of Braxton-Hicks contractions. And then (gulp), I remarked that having Braxton-Hicks five or six weeks prior to estimated due date is not in any way unusual, nor does it suggest that labor is about to begin in earnest.
You see, Zilla and I have something in common. The SAME OB. A guy whom, after seven children and a miscarriage, I know pretty well. Well enough to know what he considers to be early Braxton-Hicks contractions, and well enough to know that there is no WAY he would have told Zilla that she was experiencing BH contractions ahead of schedule when they started only six week prior to her due date. Knew that for a fact. You see, once when I came in for my first prenatal visit at 12 weeks, long about my third pregnancy or so, and he felt my uterus tighten as he was doing an exam – THOSE were early Braxton-Hicks contractions. Doc was kind of amazed about that, and he told me so, and he also said there wasn’t anything WRONG with having them that early. But I didn’t share that info with Boss.
Zilla’s contractions are strong sometimes, Boss said. Almost uncomfortable even. Hmmmm, I can relate. And toward the end of my pregnancies, the last trimester or so, those stupid contractions would have me stopping what I was doing and breathing through them – and I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance. But that was just me.
Boss went on to say that all these Braxton-Hicks that Zilla is having are just achieving so much on her behalf and will make her labor so much shorter and easier and cause it to occur so much earlier than her due date that it will just be wonderful to behold. Oh, Boss. Oh, Zilla. I wish it were true, but sorry, not always. Maybe not EVER. Where I was concerned, those stupid things did NOTHING to prepare my body for delivery. They were just futile torment, because I never could dilate past 5 centimeters, even after 40 hours of labor. Have faith, the Braxton-Hicks did zippo for me. But I didn’t tell Boss that either.
In fact, I tried to bite my tongue altogether, but I had to comment. I just mumbled something about having lots and LOTS of Braxton-Hicks, for many months before the births of my children, and that they hadn’t been effective at ALL in speeding up or facilitating delivery. Even when they came five minutes apart for weeks on end. But that’s just me, I said.
Boss was offended. I could tell, because he was quiet there on the other end of the phone line. Silence is so rare where Boss is concerned that you tend to take note when it occurs. In a moment, he responded that just because I had my experience with Braxton-Hicks didn’t mean it would be that way with Zilla, and besides, this was her first baby. Which had been my point exactly. Since he’d pressed the issue, I was simply offering my view on the subject, to an obviously misled, inexperienced dad-to-be. One who had been probing for my outlook on the efficacy of incidental tightening of the uterus during pregnancy. I couldn’t help that my experience was totally different than the theory that he and Zilla had cooked up.
Honest. Oh, well. Boss and Zilla ended up spending that evening in the Family Life Center at the hospital. Her exam that morning had caused a little bleeding, Zilla was sure it was “time” (honestly understandable for a new mom), so they had to hang around the maternity unit until they could be talked into a later delivery date. They’d tried to pin down the doctor for a more definite idea of when junior would be making his entrance, but he wouldn’t fork over specifics. Spoil sport.
The whole baby-at-hand anxiety prompted a new fixture at the office though. We now have an entire 4’ x 5’ white board devoted to a Delivery Date Poll for Little Man. Right next to the changing table and baby swing, which are unaccountably present in our meeting room. The months of July and August are drawn in, and everyone who passes by is supposed to write his/her name on the date they guess the blessed event will take place. Zilla has already claimed July 14, Boss chose the 10th or the 22nd, and random other visitors have selected various dates up through mid-August. It somehow reminds me of a Super Bowl pool.
For my part, I’m loathe to enter a guess. Boss’ and Zilla’s militancy about the certainty of an early birth has taken all the usual fun out of the typical prenatal speculation. And also I’m not sure what the prize (or penalty, perhaps!) is for the winning guess. The honor of providing a year’s free babysitting to the new parents, perchance? Or maybe those six extra nipple shields from the shower registry!?
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