Pregnant in Los Angeles

With a new celebrity announcing her pregnancy every day, you probably assume Los Angeles is overrun with pregnant chicks.  However, as a pregnant Angeleno, I can tell you this is decidedly not the case.   I believe pregnant commoners are forced into hiding by city government, along with Joan Rivers’ original face.  And I just somehow managed to slide under the mayor’s radar.  Which is why the sight of my huge belly bouncing amongst the size-zero twigs is so oddly fascinating to people.  They actually — I am not making this up — turn and STARE at my stomach.  Like they would at a primate exhibit at the zoo.

“And here, folks, we have that rare, unseemly creature that only emerges when it has to use the bathroom.  It is part the class of vertebrate animals, Ginormous Fertilitus Mammalia…”

Of course, the fabulous thing about living in Los Angeles, pregnant or not, is that I encounter quite the cast of characters on a daily basis.  A writer’s dream.  To wit:

I recently waddled my way through the crowds of gaping onlookers and was in the midst of trying on some potential DDPOPs (Delivery Day Photo Op Pajamas… duh) at Macy’s, when I overheard another customer announce rather loudly to the dressing room attendant — and, well, to the entire dressing room — that she was buying sexy lingerie as a fifteenth wedding anniversary present for her husband.  In the unlikely case we didn’t hear her, she squeals for good measure:  “My cooking in the bedroom is better than my cooking in the kitchen, if you know what I mean!”

I kid you not.

As I struggled to pull on yet another ill-fitting nightgown over my bump, I heard Crazy Lingerie Lady make a big production of entering the stall next to me.  Great!  Free dressing room entertainment.  She was cooing at something — a baby?  her reflection? — and asking for its feedback as she modeled a garter or what-have-her.

“How does Mommy look?  Think Daddy would like Mommy in a lacy corset?  Hmmm, baby, hmmm?”

Sure hope Mommy and Daddy have enough money to cover Baby’s future therapy bills.

“I will NEVER do that to you,” I whispered to my belly.  Baby Girl squirmed, which I assumed was a show of relief.  Or a sign that she was relieving her bladder.  Either/or.

“All of these pieces are too big for me!” Crazy Lingerie Lady declared.   “I mean, I only weigh a hundred pounds for heaven’s sake!”

Naturally.

As I exited the dressing room empty-handed (I realized there was no sense in wasting money on a new nightgown for the hospital — they tell me childbirth is, like, messy or something?), I bumped into the similarly empty-handed Crazy Lingerie Lady… AND HER POODLE.  Yes!  “Baby” was a poodle.  A sad, miserable-looking poodle who looked like he’d just been forced to watch his 50-year-old mother try on see-through teddies.  There should be laws, I tell ya.  City Government keeps a tight leash on us pregnant ladies, and yet they cavalierly allow parents to rob their poodles of their innocence!

Only in Los Angeles.