My cubicle buddy got all kinds of pregnant (totally not guilty — everyone knows I shoot blanks) and then her doctor told her to stay at home and take it easy for the last trimester (I carefully prepared a pointed and charismatic theory about how trimester was some kind of made-up word, a lazy riffing upon semester, sort of like the old saw about how a workaholic is someone who’s addicted to workahol, but then the know-it-all internet told me I might as well go ahead and eat that theory with some crow and maybe some worms). Then yesterday I’m driving around, top down, absolutely cranking that song about how you need to show your man your vagina when he gets home from work, and for a second I think I see my cubiclemate, walking down the street, 100% unpregnant.

My shriek of surprise was girlish and I took both hands off the wheel to clap them against my fat little cheeks. It wasn’t her, of course, but it got me to thinking about engineering an elaborate scam where you pretend to be pregnant, announcing it to your co-workers, faking a glow via carefully applied makeup, picking up a “Been Caught Stealing” Fake Belly Kit, etc. Then the sudden news where your fictional doctor orders you to stay in bed for the next three months, and then hell-o paid vacation city, USA. Then of course Phase II where you return to work with fake baby pictures and then have to hire some black market refugee to show up with you at company parties, but I think it’d all be worth it.

Yesterday my boss made an obscure reference to an old Steve Martin album (“May I mambo dogface to the banana patch?”) and I was all: “Steve Martin in the hizzie!!” And he was super impressed that I caught that reference. I mean it wasn’t like: “High-five! Way to feel me!” It was more like solemn awe. He sort of shook his head in wonder, deadly serious, clapping me on the shoulder and saying I was a “pro.” This is good timing because my review is coming up and evidently I haven’t done any of things I was hired to do.