The Matron's Problem

The Matron has a major issue with pregnant women. We're talking complete strangers. Her issue? She wants to gush about becoming a mama.

First, she does about 15 checks to make sure someone didn't just eat too much pasta last night but is genuinely pregnant. So far no misses.

Second?

Matron: "Oh!! When is your baby due! That's so wonderful! Is this your first, second, fifth?"

This happens at Target, in the grocery store, at schools, in the park, and at the library. The Matron sees a pregnant woman and immediately wants to spill blood and kiss a belly. It's that bad.

Today, yours truly was leaving her college and a very young woman -- ready to burst with baby -- walked through a campus door. Friends? The Matron nearly fell to her knees.

Matron: "OMIGOD. When is your baby due? You look great!!"

Complete Stranger, immediately bursting into tears: "April 1! I'm scared out of my mind."

Let's just say more sobbing ensued.

With that there was some wise counsel, the Matron understanding that she was a professor and this 20 year old a student, and she took that into consideration. She took the weeping, hormonal, near childbirth young adult to a corner and gave her a cup of tea.

Captive audience. So she regaled the complete stranger with all her birth stories. It's sort of like blogging. You're in charge.

At the end of the half hour -- it really was just a blip in the day -- the young woman wiped her eyes and said: "thank you."

Then, the baby had a major muscle move. He or she pummeled visibly.

Complete stranger: "Do you want to feel him or her?"

And the Matron put her hands and then her ears to the belly and felt the surge of a new life. And when the day seemed hard later? Well.

Breaking Free?

When the Matron was a Youngish Miss and earning her doctorate, she went to the same bagel shop every day, before work/school, for -- let's all just gasp here: FIVE YEARS.

She ordered the same thing every day for (gasp again , it's okay) five years. A raisin bagel with peanut butter (crunchy) and a large hazelnut coffee.

This was long ago.

But for the past three years, the Matron has enjoyed oatmeal with peanut butter and fruit (here she's variable on the banana or strawberry debate) and black tea every single morning.

John: "Do you want bacon and eggs?"

Matron: "Are you kidding? I'm having oatmeal."

Today, her beloved husband queried her about pajamas.

John: "Have you noticed you've worn the same pajamas to bed for 12 years?"

Matron: "And hopefully 12 more to come."

She's going to make a really, really good old lady.

Dear John

Yes, this is a "Dear John" letter. But not that kind.

John,

The Matron is grateful that she's married to a man who has no spare time but yet spends the few seconds he gets on artistic ventures, like this.

Honey, she's sorry you missed the deadline for the jingle contest but the end result? Still lovely.

Your wife remembers when she wasn't your wife but your girlfriend. After several months of schlepping between apartments, a joint residence was secured. Before the big move, yours truly spent an entire day -- as in from 8 am until 9 pm -- cleaning and converting a basement room of the joint residence into a music studio as a surprise for you. She put art on the walls, secured rugs, hauled in used furniture.

This was before cell phones and she was unavailable by land line.

You were certain she had been abducted, given the lack of minute by minute communication to which you were accustomed. Instead, she was scrubbing a basement and installing carpet.

John: "Mary? Are you alive?! I've been calling your apartment all day." Tears ensued and these would not be the Matron's.

Youngish Miss: "Alive. Just busy."

At the end of the day, you walked into a man-cave designed for music-men. More tears ensued and these again, were not the Matron's.

Today, instead of single-handedly building a music studio, you are grateful if she makes you a pot pie or takes care of the oil change. What a difference 20 years make! Courtship certainly has its advantages and those advantages include more frequent frolicking between -- or on top of -- the sheets.

Let the next decade of wooing begin.