THE QUESTION

People first began to ask us THE QUESTION around the time that we got married. It started slowly, casually sneaking into conversations, and over time erupted into a daily bombardment. "When are you going to have kids?" I thought it peculiar at first. Did all these people really think that we got married just so that we could reproduce? I soon found out that yes, in fact, they did. Why else would anyone get married, after all?

Traditionally, I've made friends slowly and cautiously. For example, after about six months of talking to someone on a semi-regular basis, I stop considering it a gross invasion of my privacy when that person asks how my weekend was.

So imagine my surprise when at the tender age of twenty-four, I discovered that all of my female co-workers wanted nothing more than to discuss my uterus several times a day. At first, I thought that maybe I was the crazy one. I've always had mostly guy friends. Perhaps this was normal female interaction.

"When are you going to have kids?"
"When are you going to have kids?"
"When are you going to have kids?"

Either way, it got annoying pretty quickly, made worse when Jason started working at the same office. The gravest offender at the time was our supervisor Anna. Anna was Polish and spoke with a thick, harsh accent. She'd been in a car accident several years before with her young daughter. The daughter (an unholy brat if ever I've met one) was fine. Anna had lost one of her legs above the knee. She sued, of course, and used the money to buy herself a larger pair of breasts and a high-end prosthetic leg. The knee joint (of the prosthetic leg) was motorized and would bend with a shift in weight when Anna remembered to charge it, which was practically never; the joint also glowed blue.

Even though Anna was in her late twenties, she felt that the peg leg had cramped her social life, and she seemed to need to involve herself in the social lives of others. Shortly after Jason started, she took to thumping her uncharged leg around the office, trying to send us home to reproduce on our lunch break. It was funny the first time (well, not really, but I pretended that it was) and was infuriating midway into the second week. I explained to Anna several times that we lived twenty minutes away, thus making her plan the height of impracticability, but she remained undeterred. She asked me THE QUESTION no less than twice a day, using it to bookend her demands for me to "go get pregnant now," in her determination to alter our childless status.

I tried dodging THE QUESTION, playing THE QUESTION off as a joke, and even answering THE QUESTION honestly ("Not yet") if unspecifically. Rather than being discouraged, Anna decided that my uncooperativeness was a cry for special attention. She recruited her second-in-command Angel to assist in the daily interrogations. Angel, the epitome of trailer trash, had a snaggle-tooth and didn't wear a bra. She had both legs, and I didn't feel bad being a little mean to her. I was now, after all, being tag-teamed.

"When are you going to have kids?"
"When are you going to have kids?"
"When are you going to have kids?"

"I'm so sick of people asking," I told Angel one day in the most self-righteous tone I could muster, which, if you happen to know me, is pretty damn self-righteous. "Why are my reproductive organs a topic of discussion? I'm just going to start telling people that I'm infertile. Maybe then they'll feel bad and leave me alone."

Angel paled at the deception. "That's horrible! You shouldn't say that."

"Don't see why not. If it works, that is," I replied, shrugging.

"But there really are people out there who are infertile," Angel explained, as though perhaps I was too dumb to grasp the concept.

"Well then they're lucky," I said with no intention of letting up now that I'd finally made some headway. "I bet people aren't always bugging them."

Angel stared at me slack-jawed, her snaggle-tooth protruding slightly, unable to comprehend my unforeseen callousness.

"They can always adopt," I offered, as if that really made everything all better, and went back to my work, suppressing a massive, shit-eating grin.

Angel stopped asking. Anna stopped asking. Everyone stopped asking. It was glorious. I didn't make any friends at that office, but I didn't stay there that long either. I work in an office of men now, and they don't ask. I think we're all much happier that way.

Now that we've bought a house, people have slowly and casually started asking again. The most recent person to ask was Mary, one of Jason's friends from high school. But she doesn't have kids either, so she understood where I was coming from.

"Just tell people you have a thyroid condition," Mary offered. She had a thyroid condition. "Everyone has one these days. Then they'll start talking about their thyroid conditions and completely forget about the kids."

"That actually kinda makes sense," I told her. "Maybe next time."

To Blog or Not to Blog

I have started a blog, because my husband has required it of me.

"Everyone else has one," he tells me, "so you have to start one too."

I suppose that if all of his friends jumped off a bridge, we know what his fate would be.

Now, I'm not exactly the kind of woman who usually does something just because her husband tells her to. In all honesty, I often do the opposite of what he wants just to annoy him. Or sometimes as a means of training him not to pester me. It is physically impossible for someone to forget to put the toilet paper on the roll as often as I used to, but I hated being nagged to do it, so I managed to forget almost all of the time. The more I got nagged, the more I forgot, and the less I got nagged, the more I remembered. Thinking about it now, I never get nagged to put the toilet paper on the roll anymore because I never forget anymore. I'm not always so certain that I'm the one doing the training.

So why start a blog? Why, to have something to hold against him in the future, of course. "I know that you want to take that job in Toledo, honey, but I started that damn blog just for you, so it looks like we're staying in Maryland after all."

Seriously? No, of course not.

So that I can keep in touch with all of my friends and family? Come on now, you must know by now that I'm not that thoughtful and you're not that special. Guess again.

To express my innermost self and channel my creativity into something that helps me flourish as a woman and as a member of our global society? Not a chance. If I had thoughts like that, I 'd write greeting cards for a living. Or man a suicide hotline. Or just commit suicide.

Because I'm trying to avoid scrubbing the trim in my hallway, because once I'm done with that, I'll have to start sanding and spackling the walls? *Ding, ding, ding* We have a winner, folks. And I'm willing to bet that this thing'll come in handy on slow days at work or when I'm trying to avoid expense reports.

So my apologies, dear reader, if my lack of depth or insight or thoughtfulness or empathy disappoints. But at the very least, I'll do my best to entertain you. At least a little. I'll share my thoughts and hopes and fears with you. I'll use you as a sounding board for new ideas. And I'll always, always be truthful with you. Unless, of course, I'm just lying.