Open Containers

I have always been a little squeamish around women during live childbirth and other open containers. That is why I'm a pretty good cook. I had to learn how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch... because I can't stand to look into an open jar of Prego.

A while back, while I was on the lecture circuit, I found myself sharing a taxi with a decidedly pregnant young woman.

I was sitting at a traffic light listening to the cabbie's music; it was either a cat being disemboweled in some cave in Afghanistan or someone who could not carry a tune on the bagpipes. From the turban on the driver, I'd say it was the former. Just when I had checked to see if my ears were bleeding for the third time, the back door opened and a pretty face said, "Do you mind?"

"It's not my music." I replied.

"No. I mean... do you mind if we share a cab?" The pretty, young woman asked.

"Oh." I sat a little straighter for some reason. "Please, be my guest."

She handed me a little suitcase, backed awkwardly into the seat, and it wasn't until she had turned her legs so that she was sitting forward that I realized she was very pregnant. I don't know why but I am always slightly embarrassed when encountering a pregnant woman. Maybe it's because she is a total stranger and I am suddenly forced to share very intimate details of her life. It is as if she were wearing a sign around her neck that declares "I AM SEXUALLY ACTIVE". I wonder if pregnant women feel that way around their parents?

The cabbie looked over his shoulder and the pre-natal nymph asked to go to the hospital. "And hurry!" she added.

"But I was going the other way." I protested.

"Not any more." said the cabbie with a lilting yet somehow ironic accent.

As I settled back, the strange suitcase on my lap, I closed my eyes and found myself wishing the smells of cooked camel, incense, and body odor would go away and just let me listen to the Suicidal Sitars or whatever they called themselves. It wasn't to be.

I suddenly found my right arm in a vice-like grip. "Hey!" I said ineffectually. I turned to my seat mate and saw that her face had gone white and that she was gripping my arm and, with her other hand, the door's armrest with equal fervor. Suddenly the armrest broke from the door. I looked fearfully at my helpless arm and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Could you ask him to change the channel?" she squeezed out between gasps of pain. As I leaned forward to say something to the cabbie she tightened her death grip on my arm and said, "I'm kidding, you idiot. In case you haven't noticed, I'm in labor."

Except for one final item, that was the last funny thing that happened in that car. All I remember is the woman wailing in pain, then moaning, then stiffening, then a lot of heavy breathing, then some name calling, then more wailing, then more heavy breathing... and sweating... and moaning... and... Say, isn't that how she got into this condition?

Anyway, there was a point during the birthing ceremony, of which I found myself high priest de facto, while she was laying flat on the seat, my back door was open (her panties were on the floor of the taxi) and I was leaning in between her opened legs, trying to get a better view, when a policeman walked up behind me and asked, "How far apart are they?"

"About 90 degrees," I said without pausing. "...this seat back won't let them go any wider."

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