Bryan has gotten the same spurt of energy he always gets the minute we go to bed. I could wake the man up from a dead sleep on the couch, and the minute we get in our PJs, he’s a freakin’ five year old. He’s running wildly around the bedroom, dancing (as always), and he falls on the bed.

“Honey, I need you to take a minute and calm down, okay? And.. can you explain to me why your underwear is on inside out?”

“IT IS?!”

“Yes, it is. I see the tag.”

“Well, that explains why all day I’ve wondered why the flap was on the wrong side when I tried to pee.”

So I wrote a very witty rendition of my trip to the DMV this morning.  Of course, it got eaten by my proxy timing out.

I will give you the highlights:

I realized it was a day after a holiday, so I got there bright and early at 7:50.

They open at 8:30. (Bastards.) However, this secured me a great place (4th!) in line.

I stood on my feet until the doors opened.  Which sucked.  And then you would’ve thought it was the launch of a new gaming system the week before Christmas, because people went nuts trying to get in the door.

I got in the wrong line.  Which I realized a little too late, and then (way bummed) went and got in the back of the licensing line.

A lady in a polyester suit from Sears came in and told another woman in the registration line, “I’m just gonna slide in here because I was in the front of the line before the doors opened.”  The lady politely informed her that this was the REGISTRATION line, and if she needed her license renewed, that was behind her.

Rather than actually listen to those instructions, the suit-lady picked another schmuck further back IN THE SAME LINE, and gave the same “I’m just gonna slide in here” spiel.  The schmuck kindly pointed out that she was still in the same line.

Fate then sent her to me.

By this point, I was about third in line to get my license renewed.  She approached the lady in front of me, an older black lady, and said, “I’m just gonna slide in here because I was in the front of the line before the doors opened.”

“MAN, I WISH I HAD SOME SYMPATHY FOR YOU,” I said, fairly loudly (as indicated by CAPS lock), “but I’m eight months pregnant and I’ve been in line too.  So, no, you’re NOT gonna do that.”

I don’t normally act this way.

She sized me up and said, “No, you don’t understand.”  This was her first mistake.  Consequently, it would also be the last time I would let her speak.  “I was in the front of the line before the doors opened.  And I’ve got to get to work.”

I actually took a step forward to her and lowered my voice, so she had to lean in.  Again, I am not this person.  “No, honey, YOU don’t understand.  I WAS the front of the line before the doors opened, and I sure as hell didn’t notice your cheap-ass suit up there with me.  I made the same mistake you did, and got in the wrong line, but then I actually paid attention to what I was doing and got in the right line.. at the back.  Just think: you could already be in line if you hadn’t been trying to make the rest of us unimportant.  And do you think the rest of us don’t have to get to work?”

She actually glanced at me one more time, and I took another step toward her.  Then she retreated to the back of the line.

Of course, I followed this snarky brilliance with the pregnancy stupidity of standing in our elevator for close to ten minutes, trying to figure out why the damn doors wouldn’t shut. (Hint: you have to press a button for a floor other than the one you are currently on before anything will happen.)

I leave you with the moment that inspired me this morning: Mandy Patinkin in the short-lived masterpiece, “Dead Like Me”.

I will say that, for all of my bitching, that there is a certain adoration you begin to feel when you’re pregnant. Typically, I tend to blow those things off and say that I’d be vain in acknowledging them, but as the months tick by (and I grow noticeably larger), it’s nice to have people tend to me a little bit.

For instance, a coworker of mine stops by every morning and every afternoon to make sure that I’m not swelling, that I’m still okay, and that I’m taking it easy. She has determined that an empty office in our area is “Sarah’s room”, and the minute I’m tired, I’m to go in there, lock the door, and take fifteen minutes with my feet up. I don’t need this kind of caretaking, but it never goes unnoticed by me.

Another example was even more unexpected. I have been driving a four hour meeting every Monday for the past eight weeks, but my turn is now over and I only take a shift of an hour in there now. While I was in there, Tony was especially active and was sitting right on my diaphragm. I stood up, rocked back and forth for a bit, and generally tried to get enough oxygen for the two of us. After I was relieved, I headed into my boss’s office to chat. The girl who relieved me ran in about ten minutes later, pale and out of breath. “Are you okay?!” she asked.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I said, “Yes, I’m fine. What’s up?”

She said, between gulps, “Three people in there stopped the meeting after you left and asked me to make sure you were okay. They said you were panting and pacing and they just knew you were having the baby. So I ran into the bathroom, because that’s where I would go if I were having the baby, and I said, ‘Sarah, are you in here?’ and someone said yes, but it wasn’t you, it was some other girl named Sarah who was NOT pregnant, and so I came here, and here you are. You’re okay?”

Now, the men have to be more covert about how they care for me, but they still have their ways. There are so many ethics in place in today’s corporate environment that they are afraid to even tiptoe around them.. especially when you consider that a pregnant woman is incredibly hormonal, and what might be funny one day to her might set her off the deep end the next. But today, when I sat down to our morning tag up and feverishly began fanning myself (I was seriously sweating), the old codger next to me smiled and giggled under his breath. “I’m just so hot,” I said, probably weakly. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Hang in there, momma.”

Again, I feel compelled to reiterate the fact that I don’t need this kind of attention. I’m not pregnant for anyone other than myself and Bryan, and I don’t expect anyone to take up my slack. In fact, I work twice as hard to make sure I have no slack.

At the same time.. it’s nice to have it.

It’s a difference of want and need.