During a recent after-school euchre game (upon which my partner, Amanda and I PUMMELED our opponents), we were discussing our lifelong abstainment from stuporizing substances. "Although I have a long litany of stupid things that I have done over the years," I said, accidentally trumping my partner's Ace, "I can honestly say, with the exception of a tooth extraction gone horribly wrong, that I've never done drugs." Glancing at the King of Spades and an accompanying ten in my hand, I ordered the dealer to pick up a black bauer and nodded confidently at Amanda, "Well, there was that one time when I almost dropped acid." "What??!!??" Everyone lowered their cards and looked at me as I transported our little crew back in time twenty years.
I was seven months pregnant...
"This just went from bad to worse," groaned Geri, shifted her called-up bauer next to the left bauer.
I was at a Grateful Dead concert, wearing a cute, bright yellow shorts jumper with no pockets and waiting in the world's longest long for the porta-potties. By the way, I believe that legislation should be introduced to allow pregnant woman first-access rights to bathrooms.
"Wait," Kelly interrupted, admiring her hand full of Aces, "you told me last year, when you shoved me out of the way in the faculty restroom, that woman with weak bladders from having babies should have first-access rights." I blinked at her, confused. "Yeah...?"
Anyhoo, as I was waiting for an insufferable amount of time beneath that blazing Erie, Pennsylvania sun, I watched a disheveled young man wearing a serape walking alongside the line with several papers. He must be petitioning for a change in governmental policy, I thought, shifting uncomfortably from foot-to-foot. Many people were eager to fund his cause as I saw several offer him a dollar or two. As he drew nearby, I saw my mistake and realized he was actually a starving artist. The papers he was carrying were filled with tiny cartoon characters. How delightful. I saw Disney figures, a colorful unicorn, and leprechauns. Seeing my interest, he went to hand me a sheet so that I could inspect his talented work up close. At that moment, my keen pregnant radar went off, alerting me to imminent danger and I glanced around. There, in the distance, I saw my husband, going full-board OJ Simpson (the early years) from the Hertz commercials, leaping over flaming grills, sliding across car hoods, dodging vendors carrying helium-filled balloons ("They weren't filled with helium, Amy," sighed my exasperated husband later) to throw himself between me and my startled entrepreneur. Brad grabbed my arm and, despite my loud protests, pulled me from the line. Several factors were obviously in play here, in the protection of me and my, as-of-yet, drug-free fetus. First of all, my husband had strategically dressed me like a fluorescent canary so that he could keep tabs on me from a distance. Secondly, my adorable outfit's lack of pockets would have prevented me (if I had, in fact, felt compelled to make a purchase...which I wouldn't have because I am far too street-smart for that!) from acquiring a dangerously illegal acid-laden cartoon. Either way, I learned a valuable lesson. Never trust a guy in a serape peddling papers in a porta-potty line. I also developed a life-long habit of dressing my children in day-glo colors which turned out to have multiple benefits. Not only did it keep them off the drugs, it also heightened the odds of them being selected from a crowd of hundreds to kiss the whale at Marineland.
"I learned a lesson from this as well," my partner said, watching sadly but with a marked lack of surprise as we were euchred. "What did you learn," I asked, clearing the cards, glad that my story may have positively impacted her impressionable life. "I learned I need a new partner for euchre. What did you call that up on! A King and a ten! Are you on drugs right now?"
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