Thoughts on Joshua before his first visit to a Buddhist monastery

On Tuesday I will go to spend five nights at a Buddhist monastery, where I’m told I will meditate, be mindful, and have one meal a day. Part of it is me simply buying some non-expensive time before going to stay at a (part of me wants to say “proper”) Anglican convent the week afterward, but part of me would actually like to learn something from the experience, despite not being a Buddhist. I think, particularly in preparation for the silence of a stay in a convent, I would like to become a blank slate. That is, I really earnestly hope to learn how to think of nothing, a way to drown out the voice that shrieks “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE ALONE!” or “YOU WILL NEVER FIND MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT BECAUSE YOU ARE SHIT” in every moment of silence.

However, the largest and most overwhelming part of me cannot stop thinking about minimal eating and the effect this will have on Joshua, my stomach. Even at the best of times, he is a difficult mistress who cries out for McDonald’s, red velvet cake, and every British biscuit ever made. But in this case I’m not even that worried about the thought of not having a constant supply of food piping into my mouth. No, I’m worried about something much more serious.

Regardless of what I eat, whether healthy or greasy, too much or just right, my stomach makes the most appalling noises whenever the volume in the room falls below a certain level. It had a particular knack for making a noise like a fat knight in oil-thirsty armor slaying a large, fire-breathing beast in the moments of silence before Evening Prayer during my PGCE year, and I would think to myself, “SILENCE, STOMACH BEAST!” to no avail.

What if my stomach makes a noise and the people meditating around me are only able to be mindful of the fact that my stomach is making weird noises like a cat being savaged by a cheese grater? Will I prevent them from reaching Enlightenment?

I’m also worried that during moments of silent meditation l will think about the college Zen Buddhism lecture that I had to leave because I couldn’t stop laughing, the one where I ended up collapsed in a stairwell weeping with laughter. A friend I was attending with had farted with incomparably beautiful timing, the memory of which STILL causes me to burst out laughing regardless of present location—lecture, classroom, public transportation, funeral, etc.

Between worrying about getting the giggles and worrying about the various roaring noises my stomach feels compelled to make, I’m a bit, well, worried about staying at a Buddhist monastery for the better part of a week. But there’s actually a lot to look forward to. I'm excited to learn more about Buddhism, something I studied briefly and don’t fully understand or even appreciate. But most of all, I’m quite looking forward to five days of FUCK OFF, WORLD. IMMA SIT HERE AND HAVE A THINK.

CAN WE GO?!

I’m on the District Line somewhere between Embankment and Upminster, my legs straining to prevent my enormous suitcase from falling on anyone and my brain straining to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life. It’s officially my anniversary of job seeking, and I’m riding this train with a fresh sting of rejection. And even more than rejection, fresh affirmation that I’m probably not supposed to be doing the one thing I’m qualified to do: teach. I mean, I am supposed to teach, but I don’t think I’m meant to be a teacher.

I’m sitting there with a growing sense of panic, the kind where you think “IS IT HOT IN HERE?” and suddenly your clothing all feels tight and you just want to vomit everything, but there’d be nothing to vomit anyway because you’re too upset to eat. The kind of panic where, even after the train has emptied as you’re now far from the city center, you feel like there isn’t enough air in the train and you’re going to suffocate. Oh God everything is so shit, I’m so shit, oh God oh God oh God I can’t take it anymore I just want to cut my own head off, make it stop, I just want to scream—

And then suddenly someone screams. But it’s not me. We’d been stopped somewhere near wherever West Ham plays, but we’d been stopped for an obscenely long time. Train stopped, doors opened, waiting for no apparent reason. People were starting to get a bit impatient, when this woman’s voice from a different train car called out, “CAN WE GO?!”

After the first time she said it there was a long pause. Me and the person sitting across from me exchanged bug eyes, almost wondering if we had imagined it. But sure enough, she broke through the quiet again, this disembodied voice shrieking, “CAN WE GO?!” But we still didn’t go. We still sat there with the doors opened. So the voice asked again, this time louder: “CAN WE GO?!” And then with even more desperation: “CAN WE GO?!” Then again and again, louder and louder: “CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?!” Towards the end it sounded like she was about to start crying, not with sadness, but with frustration of the futility of her efforts to get the train moving. “CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?!”

For a while I sat there with a vague smile on my face. I grew up thinking that English people were all quiet, polite and passive, and here was further evidence to prove my thesis formed last year that actually English people are some of the most in-your-face and/or obscene people I’ve ever met (I say that with love and admiration). I was amused, to say the least. But then I thought harder about this woman yelling at the train.

“CAN WE GO?!”

I think it pretty succinctly sums up how I feel right now. You know, some unemployed people don’t really have a clear sense of where they want to go, and even some of them just want to sit on the couch and laze around all day, never growing up. I’m not one of those people. I’m pretty enthusiastic about getting my life started (provided that I can still have the occasional “Fat Elvis” couch-sitting marathon). I have a very clear idea of what I would like my life to look like. Sure, I’m willing to compromise—my imaginary Beagle doesn’t HAVE to be named Simon Peter—but I think I have some very clear “career” goals that I’ve been trying to pursue. I want to go, I want to get this started. Let’s GO! Why aren't we going? CAN WE GO?!

Unfortunately, no door that I’ve tried opening has been unlocked. Actually, I feel a bit like how I felt a couple weeks ago when a friend lent me the key to her flat with instructions on how to find her flat and I, being jetlagged (okay, even without jetlag I’m this much of a bozo), spent about 25 minutes trying desperately to get into a perfect stranger’s flat. Eventually I did figure out that my friend’s flat was around the corner, and I was able to laugh about it. But to go back to my life in general, I feel like I have a key that does not fit into ANY door. Because, my God, have I tried a lot of doors.

So anyway, back to the train. This woman is screaming “CAN WE GO?!” and that’s pretty much what I mentally scream at my life every day. Eventually the train did go, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this woman had screamed at it to do so. Part of me wonders if I should stop mentally screaming at my life because, like the train, my life isn’t going to take orders like that. But a larger part of me thinks that it must feel amazing to just let dignity go to shit and scream at the train for a bit.

The Brunch, Church, and My Social Anxiety

Some days I get really bored of meditating upon new things to which my body odor can be likened (today’s simile: a stale fortune cookie) and going for long sobbing sessions drives. Because these things are, of course, how one occupies one’s time (in addition to a never-ending stream of pointless job applications) when one is unemployed.

In an effort to get me out of the house and, more importantly, out of the dirty pajamas I call my mope rags, my mother suggested signing up for a class. Her reasoning is that any normal person would make friends. And she’s right, but unfortunately I’m not a normal person. I would say that I’ve forgotten how to make friends and socialize, but that would imply that I knew how at one point.

See, I’ve signed up for this theology class a local church. Before our lecture and discussion, we are expected to have dinner with each other in the parish hall, a dinner which, if you know anything about me, is complete agony. I honestly cannot remember how I have ever managed to make friends, and indeed sitting through these weekly dinners that are like a Greatest Hits album of my gaffes has made me seriously wonder whether the people I think are my friends are, in fact, imaginary.

I wish I knew how to show these people how desperately I’d love for them to tell me about their day, using a method that does not involve asking accidentally personal questions about their work in a voice several octaves higher than my actual speaking voice. I try to fill our many awkward silences with a friendly smile to show how open I am, but instead I smile the near-hysterical forced smile of someone who has just farted in polite company and is hoping to God that no one heard it. When conversation has been paired away from me, I drink obscene amounts of water simply so I have something to do with my hands. Other times I give up and pick a spot on the wall, stare at it with a forced serene expression on my face, and wonder why this is supposed to be better than sitting at home in my underpants and crying.

The worst is when one of the priests comes to the table, because they use a Scream movie entrance rather than a Jaws approach. That is to say, none of them wear clerical gear, so you don’t notice them slowly but surely making their way towards your table, which would allow you to prepare for their arrival.  Instead you casually look to your left, jump about five feet in the air, let slip an expletive, and say hello to the priest that was definitely not sitting next to you just a second ago. But why would you need warning for a priest anyway?

Well, only a minute before you were treading water in a sea of people with actual social skills, and then all of the sudden without warning the priest, who as a priest is naturally the only other person in the room whose social ineptitude can even begin to compare to yours, comes up and starts talking to you. There is at least some hope of normalcy when I talk with the other people, but now suddenly the conversation becomes the verbal equivalent of two fat people trying to come through a doorway at the same time.

If dinner isn’t alienating enough, the post-lecture discussion does a great job of making me feel more foreign than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not entirely sure which country I think I’m from, but I think we can safely assume no one has heard of it. It’s not just my social awkwardness, it’s also the content: they talk about heaven as social justice and replace God with a vague “higher power,” apparently everyone’s been canonized, and we listen to the Gospel according to Maya Angelou. It’s all so foreign to me that I would have an easier time if they instead talked about Malian butt hygiene.

I could have given up socially, but I’m stubborn. Pioneer spirit, American can-do attitude and all that. I like to think of myself as a one-woman Titanic band, if the Titanic band had sobbed hysterically while nonetheless sticking to their guns by going down with the ship. And so what does the one-woman Titanic band do?

She signs up to serve at the parish brunch. I figured I would have a purpose, and I could make small talk but would also not be weird for being quiet. And, best of all, I’d have something to do with my hands. THIS would be my social in, I declared.

When I walked in to serve brunch and discovered my role for the morning, I am convinced that Satan and Hitler were sitting on a couch somewhere in Hell, having a fantastic laugh about it. Hitler actually laughed so hard that he snorted, got really embarrassed, and had to tell Satan to stop making fun of him. See, I had been placed in the position of “kitchen runner.” That is, I had to stand awkwardly (well, the awkwardly part was optional, but I like to go big in all my roles) to the side and watch other people serve other people. Should any buffet server run out of food—which, I must stress, did not happen—I was to go to the kitchen to bring more out. But mostly I was to just stand awkwardly to the side.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re uncomfortable and have nothing to do with your hands you suddenly turn into an octopus? It’s like all of you is just a blob of hands, knocking into things, touching your face, shaking violently. It seemed like every time I tried to casually ignore one of my hands it would suddenly become five hands, and if any of those new hands were ignored they would then turn into even more hands. Hands everywhere, but what do I do with them?

This pretty much sums it up.

I tried standing by the silverware station with my hands in my apron pockets, but there were two problems. The apron pockets were in a quasi-vulgar place, and also a parishioner thanked me for my work. Having done literally nothing to enable the fine buffet spread besides putting on an apron, this was more than I could bear. I figured I could reject the gratitude and explain that everyone else had done the work, but it seemed like I would waste too much of her time in explaining that this was not false modesty but simple accuracy. After all, she just wanted to say a quick thanks before shuffling away to eat her breakfast—she wasn’t asking for insight into my social anxiety. So instead I died a little inside and said, “You’re welcome. Enjoy!”

I figured I could just do this to anyone who said thank you, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks when I met the eyes of the 8 year old standing between me and her mom, who  (lucky bitch) was assigned to serve the scrambled eggs. I swear this 8 year old girl in a sunflower-patterned sundress could see into my soul as her eyes seemed to sentence me to Hell with a, “YOU DID NOT DESERVE THAT THANK YOU!” For all I know she didn’t even hear the thank you exchange and was just appalled by how ugly I am, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Absolutely terrified of what this 8 year old girl with flowers in her hair would do to me, I swapped my creepy lurking by the silverware table for falsely purposeful surveying. I floated around the parish hall, pretending to do mental calculations of how much orange juice we had left (enough), patrolling around like a soldier visually verifying that every table had a pitcher of water (they did), and, perhaps most stupidly, putting on an official census worker-like air to ask the buffet servers if they needed anything (they didn’t).

Still though, I wasn’t as bad as the Brunch Nazi. She was in charge of ensuring the smooth running of the parish brunch, and she clearly thought the day was the culmination of her life’s work and existence. Indeed, she was called by God to manage THIS particular brunch, which I guess to her turns every scone we are short of into one concrete slab in the sidewalk to Hell. Someone served an old lady about 30 seconds before Parish Brunch Go Time, and Brunch Nazi reacted as though someone intentionally shat in her jacuzzi.

She also used the word “need” more often than I use the word “just.” Just about every sentence took the form of “I need you to do X” or “We need to do Y” or “You need Z.” And you could tell that she really meant the NEED, you could hear the urgent desperation in her voice every time she opened her mouth. The “need” seemed to suggest a WE WILL DIE IF THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I found this amusing because, actually, we don’t need to do any of this. We could actually just say screw it to all of this and go back to bed. But instead we got “I NEED Hallie to serve this much potatoes. I NEED you to go to the kitchen to ask them about this. We NEED , We NEED, We NEED, You NEED, I NEED.”

Lady, you know what I need?  I NEED you to calm the eff down. You’re like my dog  when the mailman comes, and you know what we give to my dog? Prozac. You should look into it. Because you know what happens when the parish brunch is running a little short on scrambled eggs?

Everyone dies.

Oh wait, no, that’s what happens when there’s a nuclear holocaust. Sorry, I meant to say that some people don’t get scrambled eggs. And if having to suffer through scones, potatoes, ham, and unlimited coffee and juice without scrambled eggs at the parish brunch is enough to make someone abandon Christianity and join some kind of pagan cult, then so be it. They’re probably better off there than here anyway.

My Acceptance Speech

Announcer: AND THE AWARD FOR MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON GOES TO....[*pauses while opening the envelope. flashes a cheeky smile to the audience*] awww, you don't really want to know, do you? Haha, oh all right then...SAM BERRY!

 

 

[*immense applause as Sam gets up from her seat, awkwardly and unintentionally shoves her butt in people's faces as she scoots towards the aisle, and accepts her award on the stage*]

 

 

Sam: Wow...oh my goodness...[*applause starts to gradually die down*]...wow...[*inspecting award*] this is just...wow...thank you, thank you [*applause finally dies down completely*] thank you.
 

This is such an unexpected honor. I never thought I'd be up here, winning this prestigious award when I was up against so many amazingly unemployed people on welfare.
 

You know, growing up on the mean streets of Cheviot Hills, a hood where a slim majority of people can only DREAM of upgrading their BAs to doctorates, I never thought it would be possible to win such an amazing award. [*running left hand through hair in stunned amazement*] This is like something out of a dream. Um...wow...I'm speechless, but I'm gonna keep talking. [*the crowd chuckles*]

 

 

I mean, as I watched kids graduate Brentwood and go off to college and grad school and become successful lawyers and doctors and what have you, I always felt that the world of sitting in one's underpants all day and sobbing sometimes quietly and sometimes violently while questioning the worth of one's existence was something that only happened in fairy tales, something that couldn't happen to me, Sam Berry, just some poor nobody in upper-middle class suburbia. But you know what, America?

 

 

[*raising award triumphantly in the air*]
 

DREAMS. DO. COME. TRUE.

 

 

Of course, there are so many people to thank. Obviously the schools, the private families, and the countless faith communities both here and in many foreign countries, for not employing me. But you know, I couldn't have done this without the behind-the-scenes help that I received from hundreds of more qualified individuals who, with Christ-like attitudes of self-sacrifice, willingly succumbed to employment in my stead. I could not have achieved this without you guys.

 

 

Most importantly, I want to address any children who might be watching this, yes you children whose eyes are big and Bambi-like with the hope of unemployment. I'll tell you now what I would have told any young person, had I actually come in contact with one since last June, and that is this: my success here tonight was not without effort. Only if you work really hard and stay in school will you, too, one day be able to baffle and annoy the living shit out of your Oxford tutor by being the one student in his program who is still unemployed. You need faith in yourself and in God, children. That faith will give you the strength you need to wake up in the morning, apply for a job you're either ridiculously under or over qualified for because it's the only one out there, and then spend the rest of the day crying into some cake. Faith will give you the courage you need to carry on in self-pity in spite of the nay-sayers who call themselves "friends" who try to weigh you down with things like "hope," or the promise of a job one day, or their prayers. Faith will give you the determination you need to cry like a little bitch every day. You need to believe in yourself. Yes, in the words of Dr. Maya Angelou,

 

 

"Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh-no."

 

Faith really is the most important thing, children. And adults. I would like to take this opportunity to thank God, who has blessed me with the totally off-putting complete lack of social skills without which I could never have bombed so many interviews. You see, not so many people are lucky enough to be born with the gift of having no idea how long or short appropriate eye contact is, giving me a shifty, serial rapist-like quality when under pressure. Only a loving and personal God would inspire me to take the successful gamble of actually shimmying at a headteacher during an interview. By God's grace alone do I misunderstand interview questions, awkwardly interact with other candidates, and laugh when no one else is laughing. Yes, it takes a lot of work to be stuck in this state of permanent adolescence, but with God all things are possible.

 

[*orchestra starts to play*]

 

 

Oh dang it, I've turned into one of those people that the orchestra has to play off the stage. Sorry I've spoken for too long! Um...oh crap oh crap...there are still so many people to thank...um....thanks to Carol, Susan, Charlie, Jeff...um....Hank, Laurie, Jeff...shit, I already said Jeff...um....OH MY GOD I NEARLY FORGOT KEVIN! Um...oh the band's getting louder, they really want me off. Ok okay, um, thank you America. [*points at sky*] Unemployed to the glory of God!

 

 

[*exits*]

Malian Butt Kettles

As mentioned in a much earlier blog post, I ended up at a colorful hostel in Paris with several roommates. I’ve already written about one, Mrs. Iceland, but there are many others—Oliver whose sign of respect is eating things, two Brazilians—Talita and her lover, whose named sounded suspiciously like Guano--who seemed to be attempting to set a record for the loudest public sex in the filthiest place (the hostel), and a naked Italian man who would periodically show up in the room despite not being a guest of the hostel or a guest of any of the hostel guests. On my last morning I woke up to find that this morning the part of all of my roommates would be played by four absolutely enormous Asian men.

But today I want to talk to you about Mackenzie*.

Mackenzie was from Napa Valley—a California girl like me, though she was from up north, in wine country. I don’t remember too much what she looked like. She had freckles, but the weird kind that you don’t really notice until you get up close and then you’re like, “WHOOAAAAAAA! YOUR ENTIRE FACE IS FRECKLES!” I know she was sort of petite and had a sort of farm girl quality about her, like you wouldn’t be surprised if she interrupted your conversation with the phrase, “Oh, excuse me for a moment, I just have to go plow the fields, be right back” except she disappointingly never said that.

Like many Americans at small liberal arts colleges, Mackenzie had spent her junior year abroad. After living in Mali for several months, she was taking a vacation in Paris before heading back home. She was thrilled to talk about Mali, and we were thrilled to listen.  Heck, I don’t know anything about Mali. Tell me about the culture! The music! The people! The politics! The food! Come to think of it, I have no idea where the hell Mali is, so maybe also show me where it is on a map…

If Mrs Iceland talked way too much about all aspects of Iceland, Mackenzie spoke exclusively of ONE aspect of Mali:

Butt hygiene.

Yes, in all the fascinating things I assume you could say about Mali (I don’t know for sure, since I still only know about how they clean their asses there), this girl was passionate about the way that the people of Mali apparently use what she dubbed “butt kettles” to clean up after themselves after using the toilet.

To be fair, it’s an interesting thought, and I’m glad she mentioned it. However, the existence of this particular form of butt-washing warrants a couple of David Attenborough-style observations, maybe a few jokes. It does not, as Mackenzie decided it did, warrant an evening-long enthusiastic campaign for us all to adopt the Mali butt kettle system. Noticed by any NORMAL person, this peculiar cultural detail would not have sparked the complete denunciation of toilet paper, as it did in Mackenzie, who raged against toilet paper with the sort of indignation that you might expect from victims of genocide.

I honestly thought she was going to start crying when she spoke of the liberation she felt the first time she switched from Charmin to Butt Kettle. I suppose everyone has something they’re passionate about. For some people it’s gay rights, or animal rights, or abortion, or gun control or whatever. I guess for Mackenzie it’s the abolition of toilet paper.

I often thought about her during my first month of being back in the US, when I was going through my own reverse culture shock. Mine was mostly about realizing that I can no longer make a joke about ____ or ____ anymore. That every story of anything that happened in either where I lived or at school required about 10 minutes of explaining how things work in England. Discovering that if the words “Church of England” come out of my mouth one more time then someone needs to just euthanize me.

But at least I didn't acquire a love of butt kettles while in England. I thought of Mackenzie. Oh man though, Mackenzie, HAVE FUN with that reverse culture shock.

You don't know me but I've been in your bedroom.

The other day at a party I met somebody new. I shook his hand as we both assured each other that it was lovely to meet, and suddenly a horrifying wave of realization came over me.

I’ve been in this guy’s house. And he has no idea.

I’ll spare you the details so as not to incriminate anybody, but let me just assure you that I was there legally, with a few other friends who were there legally. We needed air conditioning as it was the middle of summer, this guy’s house had it. Beyond that I won’t say anything.

Normally the first few sentences with new people are totally easy. You can ask about where they live or what they do, a simple exchange of facts before the difficult task of meaningful conversation needs to start. I wondered if he wondered why I was so rude and didn’t ask him these things, but then I thought it was probably infinitely ruder of me a few months ago when I read through his job’s paperwork that was sitting on his kitchen table. And no one wants to hear a stranger say, “I live in Cheviot Hills, but I won’t ask you where you live because I already know. And I love what you’ve done with the place!”

I had genuinely no idea how much information I could politely be assumed to know about this guy, who was after all a friend of a friend. Normally friends talk about their other friends, but I was so paranoid about the fact that I had been in this guy’s house that I made a mental note to just pretend like his name had never been uttered by our mutual friend. It reminded me of being a freshman in college, when overly enthusiastic dorm mates friended each other on facebook before we even arrived and when we met in person we had to awkwardly pretend like we hadn’t studied each other’s facebook pages. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know you also liked Liverpool FC,” you’d recite after someone responded well to your very obvious and awkward attempts to get the conversation to turn to this mutual love. Except knowing things about a stranger because you’ve been in their house without them knowing is less socially acceptable and exponentially creepier.

The conversation was very interesting. We talked about something I knew we would talk about, because I already leafed through books on it from his personal library. And as eager as I was to continue the conversation, I found eye contact near impossible because I knew that he didn’t know that I knew what level of grime he has in his bathroom (relatively minimal for a guy). God help me, I know where he keeps his shampoo. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him while screaming, “I HAVE PEED IN YOUR TOILET! ARE YOU OKAY WITH THAT?!”

This was definitely some kind of punishment for my trespassing. I had literally no idea what to do with my eyes or my hands or indeed any other part of my body. I wanted to drown myself in the party’s sea of Harvard graduates. I wanted to tear off all my clothing in repentance while screaming, “I HAVE BEEN IN YOUR HOUSE—AND I AM SO SORRY!!!!!” But instead I just stood there hiding behind a red solo cup of Coke.

I am wondering, should our paths ever cross again in the small town that is Los Angeles, at what point I am required to disclose this information. But I’m kind of hoping I’ll die before it comes to that.

A cubicle dweller reflects on the concept of pregnant women

You know what I don't get? Pregnant women. I'm staring at one right now and I have no idea how she's so calm, doing work on the computer. If I were her, I'd spend all nine months screaming, "OH MY GOD THERE IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER F***ING PERSON IN MY STOMACH LIKE RIGHT NOW. HOW THE F*** IS EVERYONE OK WITH THIS?" But not her. She just sits there, occasionally clicking the mouse and humming along to the quiet strains of a muted Stevie Wonder belting something out on the office radio.

And this is not even taking into account the countless horrifying aspects of the actual process of childbirth. No, ignoring the pain, the wishing your husband dead, and the potential to crap yourself in front of strangers, I--and I say this as someone who is pro-life and completely pro-babies--find the concept of pregnant women to be completely and utterly terrifying.

I feel like it's not cool to admit this, particularly as a woman (and a woman who loves babies for that matter), but I find the concept of pregnant women about as frightening as the concept of a twin in the womb dying and being absorbed by the other twin, like I saw in that House episode. Or maybe it was a nightmare. I can't remember anymore, all I know is that it was bad, because you know it's two people, but you only see one. Pregnant women are like the conjoined twins who got their own TV show on TLC, except much more concealed and therefore much more sinister. No, even worse, it's like a pregnant woman has her own horcrux that she carries around with her in her stomach. SHE CANNOT BE KILLED.

And because the fact that a pregnant woman is actually two people in one is hidden beneath clothing and skin, then there's the problem of fat people and/or people who wear empire-cut dresses or blouses. Are you pregnant and therefore to be feared, or do you, like me, simply have a fondness of Hostess snack cakes? This is why obesity is an issue--not because we're all going to die of fat, but because I don't know who is a terrifying clandestine two-person she-beast and who just likes McFlurries. Clearly the only solution is to either make all pregnant people wear signs announcing their pregnancy or we fat people need to start wearing signs that say, "DON'T WORRY: JUST FAT."

This might seem extreme, but you'll know I'm right once you, too, spend a few hours in an office where the only person you can see from your cubicle is a pregnant woman. In the meantime, I'll just be keeping an eye on her. COME NO CLOSER, TWO-HEADED SHE-BEAST!

You're welcome, world.