So you're at the fair. It's Saturday night, and you're feeling good. People are screaming in fear and delight. You can smell candyfloss and hotdogs. You warm up with one fast-and-fun-but-not-scary ride. And then it's time for the big one. You queue, not that there's much of a queue. You pay. You go put your handbag down and take your slip-on shoes off so you don't fling one off while you're riding and end up committing death by ivory pump. You go to get in. While you're trying to clamber up into the ridiculously high seat, you absently catch sight of the warning signs. You never bother to read warning signs on rides, because the contraindications are always the same: no riders less than 1.5 metres tall, no pacemakers, no back and neck injuries, no oh my fucking God I haven't had a period in three months.
What's a girl to do? Panic, it seems. Panic, mutter something to your friends about not being able to get into the seat because your legs aren't long enough, try to shake off the sweetheart of a ride operator who offers several times to lift you in, and move very quickly towards the exit while your friends yell at you, confused. And then leave the fair as soon as possible without seeming unfriendly, and take yourself off to Tesco to buy a pregnancy test. And then to Nando's, since you're already out, and dressed up for the evening, and most of life's problems seem less daunting when there's peri-peri chicken.
So far, I have a negative result from the pee-on-a-stick test, but I need to get a doctor's appointment this week. My body's been out of control for the last year or so, so there's no knowing what's going on. It's true that I've gained a lot of weight. None of my clothes fit, especially around the waist. I look pregnant, but then I've looked pregnant for the last year and a half. Could just be outta-whack hormones.
I can't even begin to express how stupid I feel for not considering the possibility. I'm an ex medical student, for pete's sake. And I deal with pregnant teenagers all the time. I give talks to teenagers at the youth center about pregnancy, how to prevent it, what to expect from it, et al. I guess that the lack of sex in my life kind of made me ignore the possibility. Not that there haven't been naked occasions. Just not many. And nothing recently. I sort of blanked out the stuff with personal-trainer-guy. Perhaps wrongly.
I long ago accepted the fact that the universe has a weird sense of humor, and likes to play jokes on me. Lakik the Trickster god, from Tamora Pierce's books, always comes to mind when I think of the stuff the universe throws at me. This stuff now may well be my just desserts for all the whinging about children I've been doing lately. I don't like kids, but recently I've had less patience with them than normal. But finding myself knocked up without even getting to have the fun of getting in that state in the first place...that would be a new low for even Lakik, that sick sonofabitch.
Meh.
I can tell it's just going to be one of those weeks.
I didn't even get my damn candyfloss.
