NO I AM NOT PREGNANT
August 16th, 2009It pains me greatly that I’m having to right a sort of followup post to NO I AM NOT GETTING MARRIED which still, two years later, boggles my mind. Here’s a snippet from that (an email from one of my wretched kin) and why, although I often maintain I birthed myself, I still wish I’d been raised by wolves.
“when i was in MKE, (a certain person) told me she heard a rumor that you were getting
married. i assumed (a certain sibling!) had started this rumor but he hadn’t heard bout
it, though he said he could see you getting involved in some sort of scam,
and we all kept meaning to email you to ask about it but i don’t think
anyone did. are you getting married?”
Well, I have a new shocking disclosure that seems to fly in the face of prevailing public opinion. I AM NOT PREGNANT goddamnit. I may have a gut and chesticles/man boobs/be a proud member of the Busty Boys but I AM NOT PREGNANT.
There have a few instances lately where I have been accused of being a “pregnant man” and had my stomach patted and told (in Chinese) that it was now “two months.” But the latest cinnabun-in-the-oven injustice takes the cake.
We’ve walked from 798 to the Lidu Jenny Lou’s/Ganges/Mix DVD stretch and, because it’s hot and some of us have perspiration issues, two of us have hitched our shirts over our stomachs Beijing Belly stylee but with much more hair. You can take the Jew out of Russia, but short of frequent waxing, you can’t get the hair off him. (Eminem line of the day: “Coming together like the eyebrow on Al B. Sure.”)
So we walk past Jenny Lou’s and of course there are the usual wrinkled, dark-skinned Chinese begging out front. A stooped old man with a burlap sack over his back full of empty plastic bags walks toward us and… it pains me to recount this… here we have this guy, this ex-peasant who might be 30 and might be 95 and like most beggars he knows exactly two words in English “hello” and “money.” Or so I thought. Cuz he walks towards us and reaches out and pats our bellies. He’s short and bent over to begin with and so his face is sort of fixed at sternum height, and as he pats our stomachs, mutters, “baby, baby, baby, baby,” in the direction of my gut.
As a guest in his country and someone who was born into privilege while this guy was probably born impoverished into a dusty, dying farming village, I chose to take the high road in dealing with the situation and bellowed, “You have to be out of your fucking mind if you think that’s going to get me to give you money,” as we walked past. A few steps later, as our “friends” laughed hysterically, I came to appreciate, if not the sentiment, the pure genius of the man’s actions.
However, lest there is still any lingering confusion, I AM NOT PREGNANT and have no plans to get pregnant. I’m just big boned.
