When Regina was pregnant, veteran parents warned us about the slew of bizarre and inappropriate questions we would be asked. We were thrilled. We made a game of who could come up with the best reply to a ridiculous inquiry. There is nothing worse than being caught off-guard when is stupid question is thrown your way. Like when some turd-bucket cuts you off in traffic, flips you the bird, and yells, "What are you, stupid?" and all you can say in your defense is, "No, you are." It's important to plan for such events.
One of our favorite questions that we were never asked was, upon seeing Dylan with a bottle and a cans of formula in our grocery cart, "Why aren't you breast feeding?" Regina won a round in our imagined scenario game when she came up with, "Because I have no nipples."
Another question we'd prepared for like we were collegiate debate team competitors came to us from a friend as an actual event. When she was very pregant, one day in the grocery store, she was chastised by a stranger for having a case of diet soda in her cart. Diet soda. I mean, come on. Regina would have rubbed her giant belly and shrugged, "Baby needs a little splash in her bourbon." We liked this one so much that we roamed around aimlessly in Raley's, meeting the eyes of anyone who looked our way, just hoping they'd comment on the forty-seven cases of RC Cola in our cart.
The one scenario we thought we'd be ready for, but really weren't, was the name game. We've had people, upon hearing Dylan's name and gender, insist that we must be mistaken. Maybe it's the Carhartt coveralls, but they can't get it straight that Dylan is a girl. "Really?" they ask. "We're pretty sure," we reply as we peek into her diaper. We still haven't come up with a snappy reply, but the tough cashier at the local market helped us out the last time we were scrutinized. "You think they'd dress a boy in that much pink?" she snapped at the nosey idiot in line behind us. Regina and I just nodded our approval.
The most recent account of nosey-ness has come in the form of a tongue-lashing for feeding Dylan yogurt. Not yogurt n' hot dogs; not yogurt and Skittles; just fruity Yoplait, neat. Apparently, one ingredient in the Devil's food is a type of dye made from crushed beetle wings, or something like that. "You wouldn't feed your baby bugs, would you?" Lady, Regina thought, you should see half the crap Dylan puts in her mouth. "And then there's the corn syrup," the ugly hag spewed. Fortunately for the wanna-be nutritionist, we were in a church. Regina smiled and walked away and told me we were leaving, now, before some Shrek-lady got a Brazilian beat down.
We drove home, thinking of the perfect response to the yogurt-haters and watched Dylan in the rearview, gumming on something she no doubt found stuck to the bottom of her car seat.
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