Popping the Question

My stomach informed me IT MUST HAVE CHICKEN FAJITAS NOW (yes, it speaks in all-caps) on Friday night, which is how Mr. Candy and I found ourselves on a wild fajita chase in Santa Monica.  Every Mexican restaurant either had an hour wait or — get this — no fajitas.  A Mexican restaurant with no fajitas?  Why, that’s almost as appalling as an Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve free breadsticks and salad.  Then they’re clearly not authentic.

In retrospect, I should have just cleared the long lines by loudly recounting the joys of pregnancy incontinence and showing off my new chin hairs.  “Look!  I can almost braid them now!”  That would have shaved at least forty minutes off our wait.  But alas, I was weakened by hunger and not so quick on my feet.  Desperation landed us at a fajita-less joint that was nonetheless festive and — this is key — served free chips and salsa.

I was in the middle of shoving a particularly large chip in my mouth when the waiter asked:

“What do you do?”

Mr. Candy and I looked at each other.  Uh, what does he care what we do for a living?

“Excuse me?” I asked, confused, chip crumbs falling into my cleavage.  Crumbs to save for a bedtime snack.

“I was just wondering, when are you due?” the smiling waiter repeated more clearly.

Oh.  He was popping the question.  THE question.

“July,” I responded, proudly rubbing my belly, but also eyeing him with surprise.  Didn’t he realize what a big risk he had taken by asking a woman — a customer, no less — when she is due?  He’s lucky I wasn’t “due” to give birth to a Double Whopper with Cheese; he may have become the main ingredient in my new Mexican recipe:  Deep Fried Gonad Burritos.

“That’s wonderful!” the sweet but not-so-swift waiter exclaimed.  “See that woman over there?  She’s due in August!”

Dear lord.  So he had also asked a five-month-pregnant customer when SHE was due?  Even when my eyebrow stylist was nine months pregnant, I didn’t dare utter a word about it.   You know, just in case her usually 100-lb. frame was not with child, but rather suddenly carrying A LOT of water weight around the middle.  Like, as much as water as Lake Michigan.  She didn’t mention being pregnant, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to pop THE question and make an ass out of myself.  The woman was armed with wax, for crying out loud.  If she was indeed just water weight-challenged, I could have become the recipient of the Whoopi Goldberg No-Brow Special.

Word of advice to Mr. Waiter:  NEVER pop the question.  Not at five or six months.  Not at nine months.  Not even when the customer’s water breaks at your table.  Merely put on some waders and ask, “More chips and salsa?”

You can never go wrong with that question.