“And now, as we take our cleansing breath, give your
practice an intention, something you can devote your spirit to, as…” the yoga
instructor began.
“PFFFT!!” was heard, interrupting the meditative
instruction.
Sympathetic eyes darted around the room searching for the
mom of the gas-passing baby, so as to extend a look of knowing solidarity.
“Pardon me!” Trina exclaimed. “I must have had one too many
wheatgrass shots before class and those Downward Dogs really loosen me up!”
Understanding gazes quickly transformed into hostile
heat-seeking missile-like glares.
“That was disgusting!” cried Joan, one of Trina’s friends.
“Honestly, it stinks in here. My intention has been totally
disturbed,” stated Annie, another so-called friend.
“Let me get this straight: farting is only acceptable
when you thought it was an infant who broke wind?” Trina queried rhetorically.
“Passing gas publicly is offensive. As an adult, you should
know better and excuse yourself politely and go to the bathroom,” Joan advised.
“Yet, it’s ok for babies to do it publicly,” Trina retorted.
“And, what if I cannot make it to the bathroom in time because my flatulence
did not give me a ten seconds heads up?”
“How can you expect a baby to excuse themselves to go to the
bathroom? They can’t even walk!” Cassandra stated in shock, the third of
Trina’s friends in the class.
“Oh, so I guess you all either trained your anuses how to
fart on command or had your assholes surgically sewn shut once you entered
toddlerhood?” Trina snapped.
“It is just so uncouth and impolite,” Cassandra replied.
“Can we get back to class?” the yoga instructor requested
impatiently. The group quickly bowed and gave a most solemn ‘namaste’ bow
in apologetic humiliation for their friend’s rude interruption before
transitioning into Cobra.
Mentally, Trina conceded that she had lost this battle, but
remained determined to win the war. Yoga class was always accompanied by a
customary latte chat session and, as luck would have it, it was Trina’s turn to
treat everyone. Once all of the triple foam, low-fat, whipped delights
were ordered and received, and breasts canopied so that Cassandra, Joan and
Annie could allow their babes-in-arms to imbibe on their mamas’ milkshakes,
Trina sat down resolved to upset the applecart.
“So, did any of you read about the HIV positive men that may
have been cured by bone marrow transplants?” Trina inquired.
“I did read that,” Annie advised. “How incredible that
Harvard researchers may have found a cure for AIDS! Just think of what this
means for future generations and how sexual relations will be affected.”
Finally, some adult conversation that did not revolve around
the colour of junior’s spit up, Trina thought excitedly.
“I am definitely getting myself and my kids vaccinated against AIDS,”
Cassandra stated emphatically.
“Me too!” Joan advised.
“I think you misunderstood the news report,” Trina
suggested. “There’s no vaccine. The two men received bone marrow transplants, not a vaccine.”
“Trina, I think you misunderstood what you read. But, since you’re not a
parent, I don’t expect you to understand how diseases are prevented,” Annie
offered. “Vaccines prevent diseases. Bone marrow transplants are for cancer
patients.”
“You don’t need to have kids to know about how vaccines
work. And, again, there is no vaccine in this case. Google it!” Trina
suggested. “Out of curiosity, you are willing to run out and vaccinate your
kids against AIDS with a non-existent vaccine, but yet you refuse to give your
children their routine childhood vaccinations?”
“AIDS kills! Of course I am going to vaccinate,” Annie
replied.
“So do polio, measles and diphtheria, but you refuse to
protect your kids against those diseases,” Trina retorted.
“Yes, but Jenny McCarthy and everyone says that vaccines
cause certain developmental diseases that shall not be named,” Joan whispered.
Cassandra and Annie nodded their heads in agreement.
“You are going to take the word of a former MTV bikini
reporter over medical science?” Trina stated.
“She is on The View now,” Annie offered.
“I’m guessing that since your babies are not actually
fornicating yet with unsavory sexual partners, or engaging in unprotected sex,
or haven’t yet become IV drug users, AIDS is not really something that needs to
be on your radar,” Trina explained ignoring Annie’s comment. “Yet, they do live
in the real world and by virtue of breathing the shared air in the communal
space they inhabit with others, they could acquire diseases against which they
were not vaccinated. But, that doesn’t scare you?”
“You’re forgetting that because other parents choose to take
the risk to vaccinate, my kids are protected against those diseases even
without being vaccinated themselves,” Cassandra replied.
“Right, because at six months old AIDS is a bigger threat
than mumps!” Trina bellowed.
“We don’t expect you to understand the ‘herd’ approach to
vaccination since you’re not a mom,” Joan offered. “How can you understand the
horrible physical and developmental side effects that vaccines could have on
innocent children?”
“No, I only hold three graduate degrees, can read and write
ever since I evolved from monkeys, and understand English,” Trina spat.
“Oh my god, would you look at what that woman is wearing in
Starbucks!” Annie whispered trying to change the topic, as she pointed to a
woman wearing booty shorts with fishnet stockings and Doc Martens.
“What a slut!” Annie cried loud enough for the woman to
hear.
“And did you see her facial piercings?” Joan offered.
“I tell you, if my daughter ever wore that she would be
grounded!” Cassandra announced.
“I see young girls, as young as eight, walking down the
street or through the mall dressed like sluts all of the time,” Trina added.
“God Trina, you can’t call a girl a slut! ” Cassandra
exclaimed.
“Seriously, that is so anti-feminist. It’s comments like
those that encourage a rape culture where the victim is blamed for what she is
wearing,” Annie stated.
“You just called that woman a slut!” Trina cried. “How is
that ok, but when the word is used in relation to a kid’s more than
inappropriate attire it is completely offside?”
“You cannot call a kid a slut. You’re not a mother, so you
just don’t understand,” Annie explained. “An adult making choices can be held
accountable, but a child can’t.”
“But, you just finished saying that such rhetoric encourages
a rape culture. Isn’t it worse that a child is dressed in the same
inappropriate attire, for which you vilified an adult woman, which was bought
and paid for by that child’s parents?” Trina asked.
“That’s not right either, but calling a young girl a slut is
wrong. Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right!” Joan explained.
“Let’s talk about something a little less controversial,”
Cassandra suggested. “Ladies, how do you stand the leakage? I get so humiliated
when it happens in public.”
“I know! I feel like everyone is looking at me and that I am
the butt of a joke!” Annie added.
“Um, how can anyone tell if you are leaking?” Trina asked.
“Are you serious? It is so obvious,” Joan replied.
“Maybe to you, but I know that when it happens to me, while
I might feel a twinge of embarrassment, no one can see anything or actually
knows that it’s happening,” Trina explained.
“I don’t think we are talking about the same thing,”
Cassandra advised. “You don’t have a baby, so how can you suffer from leakage?”
“Every woman who has sex suffers from it if they don’t use a
condom! You don’t need a kid for that to happen,” Trina explained.
“Ew, gross!” Annie cried. “We are talking about breasts leaking milk!”
“Oh, right. Well, of course everyone can see that!” Trina
laughed. “I thought you were talking about semen leaking post-sex.”
“Trina, you are being completely inappropriate!” Joan
admonished. “That is not something you should ever be discussing in public.
Maybe, not even in private.”
“But, your lactating breasts are acceptable topics for
public consumption?” Trina asked rhetorically. “Nice double standard.”
“You know Trina, you just don’t get it. Maybe if you have
kids one day you will realize that certain topics become off limits,” Annie
instructed.
“Especially around babies!” Cassandra cried.
“Right, because your infant understands what we are saying!”
Trina shrieked.
“Babies have a huge capacity for understanding language! You
shouldn’t underestimate them,” Annie advised. “I think that I speak for all of
us when I say that you should not hang out with us anymore. It’s not personal,
but we don’t live your freewheeling single barren lifestyle, and what you may
think is ok, just doesn’t work for us anymore. You’re just in a selfish place
and we aren’t.”
“Because not vaccinating your kids while preying upon the
vaccinations of others due to your erroneously held beliefs, which are based on
a discredited fraudulent study for which the doctor lost his medical license,
is not selfish. Putting the immunosuppressed, elderly, kids too young for
scheduled vaccinations and other preggo breeders like yourselves, by not
vaccinating your kids is not selfish. Better still, by allowing junior to
marinate in his own shit for hours, forcing everyone else here – yes I am
directing this comment to you Annie – to smell it while we drink our lattes
because you ran out of your super granola organic cloth ‘everything-free’
diapers, is not selfish. Pampers only works for the majority of the
planet and is readily available at the pharmacy next door, but compelling
everyone to nasally absorb the scent of your son’s feces is not selfish.
Heaven forbid that the chemicals in Pampers alter one neuron in your six
month-old’s brain, blighting his chances of getting into Harvard, where two men
may have been cured of HIV by a bone marrow transplant and not a vaccine, notwithstanding the fact
that having you as an idiot for a mother is a greater obstacle to his
acceptance than anything else in seventeen and a half years from now. All of
you can go fuck yourselves and the sanctimonious sperm you rode in on!” Trina
wailed so the entire coffee house could hear. “And, for the record, I am
expecting my first in six months from now, so I do understand a thing or two
about what raising kids is all about!”
Joan, Annie and Cassandra sat in silence, dumbfounded for
all of one minute, but for what felt like an eternity, as Trina collected her
things to leave. Before being able to make a clean get away after what Trina
perceived to be a triumphant closing argument, Cassandra grabbed hold of
Trina’s wrist, leaving Trina to expect a tight slap across the face.
“You’re pregnant?!” the three women shrieked in elated
unison.
“We cannot wait to tell you everything we know about raising
kids!” Annie exclaimed.
“You are so lucky to have us as your friends!” Joan stated
as Cassandra and Annie hugged a crying Trina.
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