Pregnant Women Fight Back!! The Battle Over Expectant Mother Parking Spaces Continues: A Nevin Barich Blog Experience

Last week, in my blog about wanting a handicap-parking sticker for my own selfish needs, I made a brief mention that until I could procure such a sticker (so that I could park up front at my favorite establishments and not have to circle around a parking lot for 20 minutes to find a space), I would kill time by parking in the "expectant mother" parking spaces, because those spaces use the honor system.

Well, the pregnant women answered back. :-)

Earlier this week, my friend Elly -- who is due to give birth next month to her first child -- responded to my post on her own blog (http://www.ellyandjeremy.blogspot.com/):

To those ‘non pregnant’ stealers of this space, I tell you this:

It's so not fair for those of us who are waddling their way around, barely being able to walk from the added 25-30 pounds and the excruciating pain of slowly parting pelvic bones and ligaments as if a horse kicked you in the crotch. And, let’s not talk about the recent heat wave here in Southern California that will melt a pregnant woman in her crazy swollen feet’s tracks (what are ankles again?). Or, how about when the baby suddenly decides to pop a squat on your bladder, making you not think twice about finding a nearby bush?

Now, in response to this, I could say something along the lines of:

"Elly, I'd like to apologize to you, and indeed all pregnant women, if my comments last week were insensitive. These parking spaces should indeed be reserved for pregant women so that the considerable sacrifices they make to bring us into this world are made a bit more tolerable on at least one level."

But that would be boring as hell. :-)

Besides, Elly and I are friends. More importantly, she was totally gung ho about the whole "pregnant women fight back!!!!" theme of this blog and subsequent rebuttals that I was bound to make (as is my oh-so-controversial style).

Thus, I consider myself as having a free pass to say the following three things:

1) Countless women have gotten pregnant before the days of the expectant mother parking spaces. They managed to waddle to the Home Depot after parking far away, and their children came out fine (most of them, anyway). But apparently, expectant mother parking spaces have become like cell phones: Now that they exist, you can't dare live without them. Please.

My own dear mother went to Disneyland when she was six months pregnant with me, and she didn't have an "expectant mother" golf cart taking her all around the park. No, she walked to each and every ride.

And I came out perfectly normal.

2) It's too hot in California? Here's a thought: Have your baby in Seattle. Or Utah. Or in Wisconsin during the dead of winter. Better still, for child No. 2, instruct your husband to knock you up at a time when you can have your baby in March. California has been known to have a heat wave or two. You knew this going in.

It's too hot for you?

Then move.

Or adopt.

3) Don't talk to me about getting kicked in the crotch. I'm a man. I have testicles. I know a thing or two about crotch-kicking pain. One time, I was a playing in a basketball game with an old guy on the opposing team, and when I kept blowing by him for layups, the old guy responded by kicking the basketball straight into my groin, causing me to collapse in pain and speak in a high-pitched voice for 17 minutes.

Now, if a woman was hit in the groin by a basketball that was kicked by an old man who was mad that he kept getting beat on layups, would the woman feel as much pain?

No.

Why?

No testicles.

Having said all of this, I have decided not to park in the "expectant mother" parking spaces.

Because if I did, I would be racked with guilt over the whole "parting pelvic bones" thing.

Thanks Elly.

You ruined it for all of us.

:-)

And now for this week's:

SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Reason No. 567,423 why hockey is stupid:

Earlier this week, the National Hockey League upheld its decision to ban a 56-year tradition by the Detroit Red Wings in which fans throw octopus onto the ice. Not fake, stuffed animal octopus, mind you, but the real eight-legged (or are they arms?) thing.

Apparently, twirling around octopi has been a part of Detroit hockey culture since 1952, when two brothers who ran a local fish market flung an octopus onto the ice for good luck. The Red Wings went on to win the Stanley Cup that year, and a moronic tradition was more.

Throwing dead octopus onto a hockey rink.

That's just stupid.

Hockey is stupid.

And the octopus toss makes it even more stupid.

Hockey.

Stupid.

(Do your friends complain about the increasing monotony that's appearing over the Internet? If so, send them to www.nevdogg.blogspot.com. I'll be fresh and exciting for at least a few more weeks.)

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