We've all been to the Dollar Store, right?
So about two years ago, I was at the check out in the Dollar Store and I am patiently waiting in line for the friendly clerk to scan my items so I can stash them into an odd-shaped cardboard box.
As I wait, I scope out the awesome impulse items such as really cheap batteries, really cheap tape, really cheap word search magazines, really cheap pregnancy tests, really cheap wet wipes, wait ... did I just see Early Detection Pregnancy Tests for just one dollar?
Whoa, I grabbed five home pregnancy kits and threw them in with the rest of my own really cheap groceries, paid for my bounty, and laughed the entire drive home. In fact, by the time I got home, I was laughing so hard I could barely see straight, much less pee straight.
You need to understand that at that point in time, I had been cursed with a big bad case of baby fever and had a temperature so high, it had me seeing double. I was pestering my husband David endlessly about having a baby.
Ignore the fact that we already had more kids than anyone else we knew, ignore the fact that he already had a vasectomy, ignore the fact that my eggs were so old there was no way anything good could be coming out of them, ignore it all ... I wanted a baby in such a serious way that I could smell the Baby Magic Lotion on my unborn child's bare bottom and it smelled great.
Anyway, for every reason I had for wanting a baby, David had two reasons why it wouldn't be a good idea and I'll admit they were good reasons. His vasectomy, my old eggs, more kids than we could fit in a booth at McDonald's, etc.
I did know there wouldn't be a baby in our future and I think if I use my super keen 20/20 hindsight vision all I really wanted was for him to say something like:
I love you so much that I would move heaven and earth to have a baby with you and if only insurance would pay for my vasectomy reversal, we could cheerfully reproduce and the world would rejoice with us as we showed them our newly created sweet Baby Magic scented offspring.
Nothing more than what most women want, just the standard "I love you so much, we should have a baby" thing.
Anyway, when I got I home I had to lug that odd-shaped cardboard box of really cheap groceries from the car to the house, and put away my really cheap groceries, and dispose of the odd-shaped cardboard box, but I could barely live within my own skin because I was laughing so hard. I was about to scare the crap out of the greatest man that ever walked this earth and and life was good and this was going to be the Best April Fool's Joke Ever.
Groceries put away, check.
Empty bathroom waste can, check.
Pee on four sticks, check check check check.
Only garbage in the bathroom waste can was from the pregnancy kits, checkity-check check-checkity.
Unused pregnancy kit on bathroom counter near toilet. Cha-cha-cha-check.
Now the really good thing about the really cheap pregnancy test is that there is no "plus/minus" or "yes/no" but more like a color comparison thing. If you haven't got the directions right in front of you, you really don't know if it is a genuine potential pregnancy scare or just a stick that had some pee on it.
Wait for David to come in and use the bathroom. One big freakin' slow c h e c k.
Well, David's a no show. He's been outside most of the day cutting down the tremendously large dead trees that have been slowly deteriorating. Uh huh, and those trees are large and hollow and a safe haven for squirrels, rats, mountain lions and whatever else likes to live in large dead trees.
David's got the tree chopping-down thing to a science only smoother. First one branch, then another branch, filling the back of his truck as he goes. Smiling, chainsawing, crushing, it is poetry in motion. He has demolished all but the bottom fifteen feet of a dead tree.
I approach him, trying not to laugh on the outside.
He stops cutting, looks at me with eyebrows raised as if to say: I am not going to turn this thing off because I really like cutting stuff up so if you have something to say you are going to need to yell it.
Then I realize, ooops there is probably a law somewhere about not telling a man about a pregnancy test (real or imaginary) while he is using a chainsaw. I yell at him, "Hey, it looks nice out here. Can I get you anything?"
He shakes his head no. But he raises his finger, as if to say: Wait, I've got something so cool to show you!
I politely wait. He raises the chainsaw and revs it up one more time for what I know is totally about emphasis and then he lowers it and starts to lob off the bottom of a dead tree.
It was at that point I saw the most disgusting sight I had ever seen in my life ... it was like liquid mice were pouring out of the top of the tree and the bottom of the tree. There had to be nine maybe even ten thousand of them squirting out of the top of that dead tree. Some made it down the side and out the bottom safely while others took flying leaps, and still others were shooting out of the tree like a circus clown through a giant cartoon cannon! I screamed so hard and so loud AND I did my "I hate mice, you dirty son of a bitch" dance all the way to the house.
I was now exhausted. In one short day I had been through way too many emotions for a menopausal woman. To this day, David pinky-swears he didn't know the mice would fly that far and in so many directions or that there would be close to a million mice or that I would scream that loud and be unable to sleep for that many weeks.
The day progresses, David's chopping and smiling, crushing, sawing, going to the dump and back, and happy happy happy.
Meanwhile, my cheeks that had been frozen from my self-induced laughter festival and starting relax, my eyes are burning from the giddy, gloating, happy tears. Any trace of make up I had on is pooled under my chin, but I was hellbent on completing my Best April Fool's Joke Ever and even more so since the Mice Capades
Everything remained laid out in the bathroom, ready for him. I take quick glance and make sure nothing has been moved. Awesome. Finally, David's afternoon of Mouse Murder and Mayhem is now complete and he heads towards the shower.
He comes back out and says, "Who's stuff is that in the bathroom?"
I reply, "Mine, did I forget to put it away?." See, that was partially the truth, it was mine.
He said, "Why?"
I said, "Because I was two weeks late and I was curious." Which I really was two weeks late, but I wasn't that curious because of the vasectomy.
He said, "What were the results?" At this moment he is holding all the pee sticks and plops on the couch.
I said, "You look and tell me, I can't dare to look."
I encourage him to look, pleading because I know he won't be able to read the results without the instructions and then I will be able to decide if he has had enough.
He looks at the sticks, "It doesn't say anything, they are blank."
I'm all like,
what is up with that but I keep those thoughts in my head. I look at the stick and no kidding, there really wasn't anything there. I guess that is why these kits were a dollar. The results are temporary.
Quickly thinking, "Hon, it is because you are color blind. There is a peach dot there, you just can't see it." He really is color blind.
He blurts out, "I can't see peach, you know that." Ahh, good quick thinking on my part. Only now he stood up without speaking and headed towards the bathroom again.
I didn't tell him what peach meant, "Don't you want to know what peach means?"
He kept walking and got in the shower.
Uh oh, I may have gone to far. When he comes out of the shower I will tell him and beg forgiveness. But then once he is actually in the shower, he calls me in the bathroom and tells me to sit down. So, I close the lid and sit down.
"The truth is Carrie, this isn't a good time to be pregnant and you know the reasons why." I start to interrupt and he says, "Don't interrupt, I need to finish this."
"Your eggs are wicked old and I can't imagine I've got a halfway decent swimmer in the group and if there is a swimmer in the group it wouldn't even be good enough to swim in the Special Olympics."
I've got tears running down my cheeks, I am laughing and crying, as he continues, "We can assume because of our ages and statistics plus the fact that other than finding each other, neither of us have seen much good luck and I doubt we will have, no offense, a regular baby. But I promise I will love you forever and our probable special needs baby, too."
Just when I think I can't possibly love this gorgeous guy any more he comes along with this speech. It was the hottest, most awesome, love filled proclamation in the history of me.
I opened the shower curtain and we laughed and cried together like a scene out of a fabulous romantic comedy that everyone is raving about as a "must see" event.
Until I said April Fool's and then he was pissed. I got sprayed with the shower nozzle until I promised no more April Fool's jokes or baby talk.
That night in bed I thanked God that I was this old and this happy and this kind of crazy in love. I prayed that everyone could feel this safe and loved in their marriages.
So, yeah, it was two years ago and I haven't done any April Fool jokes ever again and I doubt I ever will. Oh, and now YOU know what kind of woman buys those one dollar pregnancy tests as an impulse item at the check out of the Dollar Store.
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