I'm not.
Dear readers, do a thing for me.
Put your hands out in front of you, palms towards your body, fingertips touching.
Keeping them in the same position, bring them so they are hovering above your tummy.
Now describe a small dome shape in the air starting above the navel, and ending below.
This, my dear readers, was what a friend of mine did the other day on seeing me for the first time in a long while.
Accompanied by the words:
"Oh my god, are you...?" (aforementioned action)
What is a girl to do?
18 comments:
Oh my. That is awful. It happened to me once except the friend in question launched into a whole one sided conversation along the lines of 'I didn't realise you were pregnant. When is it due. Do you want a boy or a girl...'
She was so embarrassed when I finally managed to get a word in edgeways and put her straight.
A couple of years later I was about a week off my due date before she finally plucked up the courage to ask me, quietly, whether I was expecting.
x
Juse, thanks goodness it is not just me. And that I nipped it in the bud. Although after I had, she just blundered on: "You look so well!" (code for "a bit porky", I know it.)
But why would anyone do that????
I would not ask unless I could actually see a foot or hand or head sticking out!
You're not are you????
;-)
xxxx
Well exactly, why? (Oh why, oh why, oh why?) It is a mystery. An insensitive mystery.
i've said that to someone before - she literally looked like she was about to drop. somehow i managed to convincingly turn the conversation around to what a wonderful shape she was and how healthy she looked ... i'm never going back to that hostel again (i wouldn't anyway - it was filthy!).
Oh dear.
I hope you did the arm stretched out forcefully in front of you, fist connecting with nose gesture in return.
Zoe, you are a mean and terrible person. (Well done for getting out of it.)
Jack, hello lovely. If only I'd had the presence of mind. Instead, I had a biscuit.
This reminds me a phrase I discovered recently in sad circumstances: "wit of the staircase" (from the French "esprit d'escalier"); this is related to the clever response you think about long after the situation is over.
But, how terribly rude. This reminds me of a visit to my mother in law's (just after we were married, 30 years ago) where my wife overheard a distant relative saying about her to MIL: "is she expecting?". Not surprisingly, my wife burst into tears, and it taught me to be careful.
I have to apologise for my pedantic comment. I have recently been reading about a blogger (Theresa Duncan, theresalduncan.typepad.com) who recently commited suicide; she called her blog "Wit of the Staircase". Miss Tickle, please delete both comments if you think they are inappropriate. Sorry again.
Pierre, I do not think they are at all inappropriate. I like "wit of the staircase" a lot.
And I am glad it is not just me to whom this has happened (although I think I am the only one to have the very important gesture.)
Thanks for liking my comment, do you mean you like the phrase, or you like the blog?
I only heard about that blog at the weekend, and spend the rest of the day reading about it. Very sad.
I like the phrase, a lot. (I did not know about the blog.)
I like the phrase, a lot. (I did not know about the blog.)
I'm sure there are many appropriate gestures that you could have used to respond to your friend. Some of them only require one hand (or even finger), I believe.
bohemienne, you are right, you are right. Damn my english politesse!
I am going to tell you a shameful secret. The other day while on my way home from a prom, tired and hanging from a high bar on the underground, a woman looked at me sympathetically and offered me her seat.
I did some sit ups the next day, but I'm over it now. Apart from the fact that I keep mentioning it all the time. And contemplating control-front knickers.
I think having a biscuit is the correct response.
Cheerful, I am so glad it is not just me. I think the knickers are the way forward. And the biscuits, obviously.
In my usual self deprecating humour hides embarrasment best style, the time that happpened to me I replied 'No, I've just been playing a lot of darts'
And then, like you, had a biscuit.
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