Keep Your Horror Stories to Yourself

Why do people have a tendency to say stupid things when talking to pregnant women? My wife is currently pregnant, quite pregnant in fact, and due to good health, good genes and the grace of God, she has been blessed with a healthy fetus and a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy.

But whenever she tells another person that, despite the minor pains and nausea, she feels pretty good, the inevitable reply is, “That’ll change.”

What a horribly unhelpful thing to say.

Do they honestly think that she is unaware of what lies ahead? Do they think that they are the first person to notify her of the impending ordeal? Do they expect her to reply, “Wait a second, you mean this won’t feel good the whole time? Please enlighten me to the contrary.”

If your friend told you that she was diagnosed with cancer but was feeling pretty good for the time being, I wager you wouldn’t respond, “That’ll change.” You and she both know there is a rough road ahead, but you don’t feel compelled to tell her.

And yet people have this inexorable desire to make sure that pregnant women know exactly what stages of hell they will be going through and which devils will be along for the ride, just in case their doctor didn’t notify them. When my wife said that all tests so far showed that the fetus was in good health, one woman felt impelled to tell my wife about a friend’s relative’s cousin’s dog groomer’s niece who had been told the same thing by her doctor only to have the baby born with autism, heart arrhythmia and three legs.

Thanks for the warning.

That would make for a great story at any party, to be sure, but why is that your response to the wonderful news that someone is likely to have a healthy baby? Let me return to my analogy: If your friend with cancer told you that the doctors gave her a 95 percent chance of recovery, would you respond with a story about someone who was told the same thing only to die three weeks later?

I think not.

So my plea to everyone, but most importantly to women who have gone through pregnancy, is this: When a pregnant woman is feeling good, compliment her. When a pregnant woman is feeling like someone is tearing out her insides with a pair of pliers, compliment her. Please save your depressing but informative horror stories for those late night episodes of Grey’s Anatomy when you can say, with confidence, “That same thing happened to my uncle’s colleague’s granddaughter’s teacher’s masseuse.”

The Next Big Thing in Firearms

Just the other day I learned of one of the most astoundingly unusual things I had ever heard of. I couldn’t have been more astonished if you had told me Angela Lansbury was a meth dealer, child abuser and bunny killer.

A friend told me that a local store was selling pink rifles.

Yes, you read that right, pink rifles. Move over “jumbo shrimp” there’s a new oxymoron in town and it’s packing some seriously feminine heat.

I would like to meet the man who thought that pink rifles would be a good sales strategy. After all, nothing draws the small arms enthusiasts like a pale shade of rose. And the 2009 models will come in periwinkle and lavender.

I just can’t imagine a world where somebody would want a pink rifle. I’m willing to bet my entire collection of John Wayne movies and boxing gloves that there is not a single man who simultaneously enjoys shooting guns and the color pink. I know a lot of guys who won’t even wear those bright orange safety vests because they look too sissy. They would never be caught in the vicinity of a pink rifle, let alone shoot one.

I also know several women who enjoy target shooting, but the pink rifle still seems to be aiming for the wrong demographic. You never see a woman drive up to the shooting range in a pink Hummer, toss her pink flip phone into a sparkly pink purse and then pull a rifle off the gun rack in her rear window.

In my disbelief I hopped on the internet and, sure enough, there are pink rifles for sale. But their marketing logic just doesn't seem to extend to firearm sales. Making pink rifles is the equivalent of manufacturing Maxi pads in several shades of puce, or gourmet food with a packet of fake vomit “to surprise your friends,” or a Hemingway literature compilation with a free issue of a Dragonball Z comic. It just seems like marketing suicide.

But then again, that’s probably what they said about creating a show for Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter, and look where that led. Now they just need Miley to do a couple of product placement ads on her show for pink rifles. “Hello kids, and welcome to the Miley Ray Cyrus Show, sponsored by Remington. Tired of all the dull browns at the gun shop? Then spruce up your gun case with a little pink!”

I take it back, pink rifles are going to be a tween sensation.

Save the Vowels

In the midst of all the political, environmental and religious turmoil in the world, we hardly need one more cause to champion. After all, most of the bandwagons are full by now. But I’ve found one that I consider to be extremely important.

It’s called the Save the Vowels movement.

The Save the Vowels campaign fights for the oppressed vowels everywhere. Every time someone ROTFLOL, many poor, defenseless vowels are left out in the rain, forbidden to join their companions in what could conceivably be a rollicking good time. After all, the human is rolling on the floor; shouldn’t the vowels be invited along too?

Most of the vowel offenders are simply lazy; they can’t take the time to write out “be right back,” so they simply belch out a BRB. The vowel-shunning abbreviations have come to replace thoughtful responses, too. A joke that would barely get a chuckle in person gets a LOL in an instant. I just found my other sock, LOL. I just saw a brown cat, LOL. I just breathed, LOL.

Fortunately, there are several corporations, especially in the Internet sector, that are doing what they can to support Save the Vowels. Take Apple Inc. for instance, they have started a foster-word placement program for vowels. They have worked miracles for the i by helping it find a home in iPods, iMacs, iPhones, etc. I have even heard they have plans to buy a dairy and start producing iScream.

So join the fight against lazy abbreviation. Instead of LOLing your way through life, support Save the Vowels and put those vowels where they long to be: laughing out loud along with the rest of us.