Does This Pregnancy
Make Me Look Fat?
written by Myq Kaplan
Sometimes a couple will get pregnant because they think that a baby will keep them together. Sometimes that works, if the baby is awesome enough and can keep the parents entertained and excited enough to ignore their problems for the next fifty years. Or if the kid grows up to become a marriage counselor and is actually able to help resolve his parents’ problems; though that might only work if the kid is King Solomon. Or Jesus. And I’m not sure that the latter’s parents needed counseling. e.g. I can’t imagine Mary saying something like “You seem distant,” and God says “But I’m everywhere! I’m right here. See my footprints?” and Mary says, “Again with the footprints? Oh you,” and God says “You’re a saint!” (And King Solomon probably wouldn’t have made it too far, because his first words were likely to be “cut the baby in half” and that would be that.)
But sometimes a couple getting pregnant only keeps them together long enough for the kid to grow to think that it’s his or her fault that the parents eventually split up, which it’ll be kind of right about. But mostly not. It’s the parents’ fault that they didn’t split up sooner. It’s the parents’ fault that the kid exists at all. It’s the parents’ fault that their DNA didn’t create a super-genius/super-Jesus marriage counselor of a child.
It’s a gamble, having a kid to fix a relationship. So some people have more kids, which is logical if they want to up the odds that one of them will be the straw that heals the camel’s back. If a million monkeys at a million typewriters could eventually create the work of Shakespeare, then why wouldn’t a million babies throwing a million poops eventually create a healthy camel?
But this isn’t a story about poop or Shakespeare. What it is, is a story about a Catholic girl I almost dated, then dated, then almost stopped dating, then stopped dating.
Here’s the thing. Sometimes a pregnancy itself doesn’t even have to be real for a relationship to be extended, as long as the IDEA of the pregnancy is conceived, nurtured, and treated as though it IS real. And that’s what happened to me.
Not that my mother wasn’t actually pregnant with me; obviously. If that pregnancy hadn’t actually happened, then this story would be even more amazing than the story of Jesus. Sure, he was conceived out of nothing, but how hard is it to create a tiny zygote out of nothing? Happens every day, almost. But Mary still had to be pregnant with him, so if I had just come into being, fully formed with no pregnancy at all, that would be impressive. Not that God couldn’t pull it off, I’m sure. Anyone know why he didn’t? He could have just zapped Jesus into being, right?
I met a girl. She was in college. I was in my first year of grad school (which I call super-college, but only right now). She was my Kryptonite, but I didn’t know that. We had an immediate rapport that she chose to ignore, and I chose to ignore that she ignored. We spent all our time together, eventually including most nights in the same bed, but she wouldn’t admit we were in any kind of relationship other than pure friendship, which is pure evil. I believe it was a week after she first said, “I love you” that she then said “Okay, we’re dating.” I had done it! I was right! She did care about me, and finally admitted it!
Sometime after that, I realized that a relationship should consist of more than just one person trying to convince the other person that the relationship exists, unless they are both philosophy majors, in which case they should both be trying to convince each other that ANYTHING exists.
So I decided to break up with her. Also there were other factors. She didn’t think I was funny; didn’t like the music I played; didn’t like the way I dressed; would often ask questions like “Were you just looking at my boobs?” which had no right answer because if I said no she’d say, “Why not?” and if I said yes she’d say, “Pervert”; and, as a devoted Catholic, wanted her kids raised that way. I was an aspiring musician and comedian who wasn’t even sure I wanted kids, but pretty sure I didn’t want devoted Catholic ones, though they could have helped me resolve that boob paradox. I didn’t mind that she helped me pick out some nice clothes though. I miss those clothes.
In any event, it was almost Christmas and then her birthday, and I didn’t want to be the kind of jerk that breaks up with her right before or on or between either of those. So I was the kind of jerk who broke up with her right AFTER, thus leaving her with some really nice presents, tainted with the memory of jerkiness. I didn’t realize this at the time; I had thought I was doing the noble thing, but if I knew it would have been no less jerky to do it beforehand, I certainly would have considered not buying her anything. Which would have been a nice way to celebrate Hanukkah.
A week later, she called me and asked if we could meet up. I sensed what was coming, and asked “You’re pregnant?” She said yes, and so we got back together for several months to plan the abortion. Because you want to do it right; you want to take your time, but not too much time, of course.
The day before the appointment we set up (which, by the way, even though she was a devoted Catholic and thus very conflicted about the decision, she made it entirely on her own), she called me to tell me that she fell down the stairs (which a Catholic friend has since told me is the only official Vatican-approved abortion loophole, though they may have been joking then, or maybe I am now), and that she went to the doctor and it turned out we didn’t need to go to the other doctor after all.
At the time, I just accepted it. God or his monkeys closed whatever doors and windows they wanted to, and if the free will to make our own life decisions becomes unnecessary, who am I to shout “Why?” to the heavens?
Later, I realized that wasn’t the direction in which I should have been shouting. Because it seems most likely now that she was never pregnant with anything at all, except for lies. Her uterus was full of deception only, and thank God she saw fit to have that deceptive lining removed before she got any other ideas like trying to birth that lie into a true reality. Because two wrongs don’t make a right, but thankfully, two lies DID make a right (and not a baby).
So all’s well that ends well. Her fake pregnancy didn’t save our relationship, though it did prolong it for some time. And if I had died during that time, then her plan would have been a success. But I don’t harbor any ill will towards this poisonous girl. If only for the one nagging doubt in my mind, the part that wonders if she was even going to SAY “I’m pregnant” that night she wanted to talk. Maybe she was just going to try and get back with me honestly, but when I offered her the suggestion, she ran with it like the truly committed “yes and” improv performer does, because that option I had offered was better than anything she had planned. “You’re pregnant?” “Yes, and... I’m crazy enough to let you think it for a while.”
Myq Kaplan is a comedian living in New York.
Visit MyqKaplan.com.