Gasp! Is that pregnant woman entering a liquor store?

Yes, she was. She just wanted some empty boxes. Liquor stores are great for that -- they always have a ton and the boxes are pretty sturdy. On account of they have to hold heavy glass bottles of liquor.

But oh the fisheye I got from the two employees I approached to ask about the boxes. They looked a little relieved when I explained what I wanted. One of them walked me over to the bin where the empties were piled up, then asked if I needed help with them, since I was "in the family way and all." I politely declined. Cause if I can tote around my 28ish-pound kid along with the big belly, I can handle some empty boxes, Sir Galahad. And all.

Really what I should've done was walked up to them and asked where the Boone's Farm was, just to watch them have vapors.

The best was the day before, when I brought kiddo into a different liquor store for the same reason. Now you've got a preggie lady and a small child surrounded by liquor. The humanity! But the nice man behind the counter seemed completely unfazed and cheerily pointed out the corner where the empties were. He was amused when I convinced kiddo to help out by carrying a box; by "carrying," of course, I mean lifting the box, plopping it on the ground, lifting it, plopping it, in a more-or-less forward motion. Until kiddo spotted the movie playing on the mounted TV and yelled "Cool bus!" meaning school bus, because all buses right now are school buses, and plop-walked his box over to the other end of the room so he could watch the cool bus on the TV. Man at the counter found this hilarious.

I do occasionally wonder whether I'm setting off pregnancy alarm bells in anyone around me. Whenever I walk in a room with a Dunkin' Donuts cup I have the urge to announce "It's decaf!" so no one freaks. In fact when I order said coffee I always make a point of saying, "You heard I wanted decaf, right?" which is as much for the benefit of the other people on line as it is for the counter folks. And just because I've been eating lunchmeat this whole time, doesn't mean I touched any at the baby shower I went to recently.

But hey, when you're sporting a belly the size of a basketball, you ought to be able to have some fun with it.