The great blueberry, juice and hormone explosion of 2006

Saturday, June 17:

I am checking out some blueberries at the supermarket today when the lid pops off and blueberries go flying. Flying. I help a produce department person clean them up and sheepishly put the half-full container in my cart. I intend to pay for it. I also pick up another full container of berries.

At the checkout, the cashier picks up the half-full container of berries and asks, “Have you been eating these?”

“No, I spilled them,” I say, “and I felt bad, so I wanted to pay for them.”

Then we discuss whether or not she should send the bagger to get me another, full, container. I think there is a language barrier on her part. The cashier sends the bagger to get another container anyway.

Then the cashier doesn’t want me to lift anything out of the cart to put it on the conveyer belt.

Then she doesn’t want me to put anything back into the cart to help the bagger.

“I put it in there, so I can take it out,” I say.

I’m pregnant here, people. My arms aren’t broken. Pregnant -- arms. Pregnant -- arms. Get it?

At home, I’m unloading groceries and putting things away in the fridge when my new bottle of juice falls off the top of the fridge (I had to put it there to shuffle things around inside and make room for it), hits my hand and spills over half my kitchen floor in 1.8 seconds.

JP immediately jumps into action, able to save almost half the juice in the bottle (although the lid is now broken in half and unusable). He starts putting down paper towels on the floor to soak up the juice.

“I don’t think we have enough paper towels for this mess, honey,” I say. “I’ll just have to get a mop.”

I am tiptoeing around the puddle, and JP just keeps pulling more paper towels off the roll. It’s like using straw papers to soak up Lake Michigan.

“I’ll mop it up,” I say. “I’m going to have to mop anyway because the floor will be all sticky.”

But he’s not listening and more paper towels come off the roll.

Then a strange but familiar feeling creeps up my neck and explodes.

“Why doesn’t anybody listen to me anymore?!” I yell. “No, I’m not a person, I’m just pregnant. I’m tired of being clumsy and dropping and breaking things, and I’m tired of people telling me they want to give me a shower when I don’t want one and give me a high chair I don’t want and telling me what I can and can’t lift!”

Then I look at JP with a handful of sopping paper towels in his hand. I feel like a crumb.

“It’s not you; I just don’t know why people won’t listen to me anymore.”

“The mop is broken in half,” he says.

“What? I just used it a few days ago,” I say.

He goes to the garage and brings it back to me so I can see for myself. The head has rusted completely off the stick. Two pieces.

“If I’d known we needed a new mop, I could have gotten one at the store,” I say.

“Well, I wasn’t thinking about mops this morning,” JP snaps.

I sit down on a stool and cry. I hate crying, and that makes me cry more. JP tries to comfort me even though I don’t deserve it. I tell him I’m sorry. Dern these pregnancy hormones!

Somehow, JP finds a mop I didn’t know existed. We stand at opposite ends of the kitchen to take turns cleaning up the juice. Then he actually leaves when I tell him I’ll finish, that he should work on whatever he was originally going to do.

Three passes later, the floor is finally unsticky. But I’m still stuck in a funk.