P.M.E.N.

P.M.E.N.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Abe calls, as he rushes through the closed bathroom door.

“Get out! I’m busy!” his wife, Lucy, shrieks, trying to cover herself with a wad of toilet paper.

                Abe fights hard to suppress a laugh, and waves a hand in front of his face. “As I can smell,” he says with a huge smile on his face.

“Shut up!” she retorts throwing the toilet paper at Abe’s goofily grinning face. “What are you doing in here?”

“You’re taking the test right? I wanna see!” Abe says, barely holding back his mirth. “Wait! This isn’t used paper is it?” He mocks disgust, holding the toilet paper at arm’s reach by the tips of his thumb and pointer finger. He flings it back at Lucy, while simultaneously covering his face with the crook of his arm.

Lucy looks down at her right hand to the tiny pink and white stick cradled gently in her fingers. She looks up at Abe just in time to catch the wad of toilet paper with her forehead. 

“You’re lucky I don’t want to mess this test up mister!” she cries in faked anger. Abe just releases laughter in response.

“Well, what does the little pink fortune teller say?” he asks, excitement clearly overcoming his laughter. “Are you a daddy or what?” Abe’s typical gender-bending humor wasn’t about to be left out of this occasion.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to look at it through the flying toilet paper!” Her voice is angry, but the entertained smile on her beautiful face completely dissolves any real annoyance.

Abe reaches out and takes the pregnancy test from her and sets it on the bathroom counter. He turns back and laughs again, realizing that she is still awkwardly sitting on the toilet beside him.

“I’ll, uh, leave you to your ‘business’,” he says, making air quotes with the first and second fingers of each hand. He quickly leaves the bathroom faking a cough as he shuts the door.

“Ha, ha, ha. You’re too funny,” she calls after him, voice dripping with sarcasm, and a hint of amusement.

A moment later Abe hears the sound of water flushing and rushes back into the bathroom. 

“I can’t wait anymore! What does it say?” he sounds like a child on Christmas morning waiting to open his presents. Lucy slaps his hand away as he reaches for the test.

“Let me wash my hands, and then I will let you know what it says,” she responds turning on the sink, and scrubbing her hands with soap and warm water. She shifts back and forth in front of the sink to keep Abe from grabbing the pregnancy test. 

                Lucy is taking her sweet time washing her hands, and, to Abe’s increased annoyance, she sings “Let it go” from Frozen. That song always gets under Abe’s skin.

                Barely able to control himself. Abe grabs a towel and wraps it around Lucy and lifts her by the waist. Drifting from the sink, she snatches up the pregnancy test. As soon as her feet touch the ground she spins around and wraps Abe in the biggest hug of her life, and whispers quietly in his left ear. 

“You’re going to be a daddy, we’re pregnant.”

                There are few times in life as exciting as when a couple discovers they are going to parents, that they helped to create life! The feeling is all but indescribable, and at the same time so scary. Being a parent comes with a whole new set of responsibilities, that no one is ever truly prepared to accept. Gone are the days of just the two of you. Sometimes, it feels like you are giving up being free, somehow. At the same time, though, you don’t mind, because in your bones you know that having this little human crawling around and stinking up the place will be the most fun you have ever had in your life.

However, as the months kick on and the reality of the growing bundle of fun spreads across the known world daddies slide back into the shadows. Not by choice mind you, but at the same time understandably so. Mommies bear so much more of the burden, all of it physically, than the daddies do. Daddies, though, feel more than they are given credit for, and sometimes they feel left out of the hoopla.

“Hey, ya know something? this narrator guy is right!” Abe says to his friends, a few months later as they are sitting in the living room of Abe’s two bedroom apartment. “I mean the whole omniscient thing is quite creepy. Hey, voice over dude can you read my thoughts?” 

As a matter of fact, I do know what you are thinking. You can stop trying to imagine me in yellow and pink leopard print spandex; you have no idea what I look like.

“Who the heck are you talking to?” Charlie, Abe’s long-time friend and father of several children, asks with a look of confusion on his face.

“You can’t hear the pink spandex narrator? Never mind, I got this thought that maybe we as pregnant men don’t get equal treatment in the whole baby making game,” Abe explains, feeling a little ashamed that he was the only one who could hear the wise and sexy voice of the narrator.

“Wait; hold up, ‘narrator’, who said I was ashamed? Wise and sexy voice? You’re talking to a bunch of guys, I think weird and creepy is a much better description,” Abe rudely interrupts the narrator.

You know, Abe, I can make the audience believe whatever I want about you. In fact you are now wearing a white bunny costume.

                Loud laughter erupts around Abe, as he walks back into the room, not even remembering that he left in the first place. He looks down and sees a head to toe white bunny costume wrapped around his body, complete with the feeling of a rubber nose and whiskers on his face.

“Ok, wise and sexy narrator, you win,” Abe sighs, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust.

Ok, back to the story. You’re keeping the suit, though, it will come in handy later.

                Abe is surrounded by his friends all gawking at him with a mix of entertainment and bewilderment. Charlie, Mike, and Rich are three of his oldest friends. Charlie, Abe’s brother-in-law, has five kids, and knows well the shadow role husbands play in the gestation process. Mike, Abe’s closest friend, is pregnant with his first child. His wife is only a few months behind Lucy. Rich, is a completely different story. He is the younger brother of Mike, and nobody holds out any hope that he will settle down and have children, on purpose at least.

“Listen, guys, this suit…” he growls inwardly at the magnificent narrator, “…represents the sacrifice we make as dads. Before I found out I would be a dad I wouldn’t have been caught dead in this outfit, but now I put it on willingly so my future baby would be happy.”

“What’s the point, Petey?” Rich asks, clearly entertained by his own pun.

“The point is, Richy-poo, Dads are quickly forgotten in the process, and we need a little equality,” Mike answers for Abe, somehow knowing where he is going with the whole “awkward bunny suit” charade.

“Listen, before you clowns end up saying, or doing, anything else you will regret let me impart some wisdom,” Charlie cuts in with a guiding older brother voice. “We aren’t in the shadows, we support our wives as they pass through the most difficult phase of human life.”

“I do not doubt that at all, but this is just as exciting and life changing for us as it is for them,” Abe argues, but the seriousness of his argument is greatly diminished by the  pink nose and cotton-ball tail. “All I am saying is that I wish we could have a little more equality. I mean, why can’t we have a daddy-shower?”

“You wanna shower with a bunch of other dudes?” Rich asks sarcastically, and rather annoyingly.

Abe, why do you even hang out with this clown? Maybe he should be wearing the suit instead of you. Unfortunately, you’re the protagonist so I can only influence what you do, not him.

                Abe is shaking his long-eared head, simultaneously at Rich, and the ever present narrator. He turns and walks out of the room to remove the bunny costume. When he returns he joins a lively discussion between Mike and Charlie.

“…then she just walked by me without even a word,” Charlie was saying. 

Abe could tell that whatever Mike had said to Charlie was swaying his attitude. 

“I know, that’s what I’m saying,” Mike replies. “Abe has a point, pregnant men should get a little more recognition.”

“Thank you!” Abe interjects excitedly. “I say we demonstrate in front of Babies R Us. Pregnant men equality now!” 

“Listen, I think you are nuts, but I’m down to raise awareness for something more meaningful. We can be pmen standing up for disabled infants, or something,” Charlie says with conviction.

“That sounds fine, but I want to make sure we get some attention as pregnant husbands. Hold on did you just say ‘pmen’?” Abe is trying to stay focused.

 “Yeah, it is an anagram. You said, ‘pregnant men equality, now’. That becomes, P.M.E.N. We are pmen,” Charlie explains as if this should have been obvious to everybody.

“I’m not a pee man! I’ve been potty trained for at least five years!” Rich replies, completely absorbed in his own revelry.

“Shut-up, Rich. You don’t even have a girlfriend, much less a child on the way,” Mike scolds.

“Hey, I could still help. I can be a, celibate men equality now, representative,” Rich retorts, slightly defensive.

“You wanna be C-MEN?” Abe asks incredulously.

“What? NO! I…come on you know what I meant,” Rich is struggling to keep his cool.

 “Yeah, whatever dude. Just chill, you can be a part. So, let’s do this then, form the P.M.E.N. We can stand up for something. We can be like civil super heroes,” Abe announces to the room. “Fighting injustice in the name of all the downtrodden daddies and babies of the world!” 

                Later that night Abe is lying in bed staring at the ceiling. His mind is filled with fanciful images of acting like a complete fool with Charlie, Mike, and Rich outside some store while a narrator skillfully weaves a web of vocal masterpieceness…

                “Hold up! Did you just ‘masterpieceness’?” Abe questions to the empty bedroom. “And what is this all ‘acting like a complete fool’ junk about? Oh! And why am I the only one that can hear you?”

                Abe just think of me as your little bug in a tuxedo and a top hat. I tell the world what is happening to you in a way that is real, and entertaining. What exactly are you trying to imagine blowing up? You still don’t know what I look like.

                Abe’s face contorts in dramatic fashion as he tries to set fire to a tarantula in a top hat and tuxedo. His constipated attempts to attack the all-powerful narrator are interrupted by a sweet voice calling from the doorway.

                “Abe? What in the world are you doing? Whatever it is I’m not cleaning it up when you are finished,” Lucy says as she slowly walks into the room holding her little baby bump as if it was made of eggshells.

                In a moment Abe’s head is emptied, and the biggest, goofiest smile leaps onto his face. No matter how long they have been together, there has been no explanation of how Lucy has such a wonderful and lightening effect on him.

                “So much for omniscient,” Abe mutters.

                “Who are you talking to?” Lucy asks looking around the room.

                “The pompous narrator…nevermind. I had a weird day today.”

                “Is that why you are arguing with the air?”

                “Kinda, I suppose, but I was hanging out with the guys today, and we started talking about how we don’t get the attention moms do when it comes to being pregnant,” Abe begins. “I mean, I appreciate everything you are going through, I just wish that people were more excited for me to be a dad as much as they are for you to be a mom.”

                “People are excited for you to be a dad,” Lucy explains, her soft voice penetrating Abe’s heart. “When people see me, they see you…”

                Poor people…

“…and how happy you make me. You are as much a part of this miracle as I am, I just get to be the spokeswoman for this new stage of our life.”

                Lucy completely disarms us…uh, Abe with her simple and intelligent insight. He doesn’t really know how to respond to her. 

                “Good gravy, I love you Lucy,” Is all he can muster.

                “I love you too. I am going to go get some water,” she says as turning and half walking, half waddling out of the room.

                How did we get so lucky?

                “I don’t know, Jimmy Tarantula, but I am super grateful that we have her in our lives.”

                She’s right, you know. This time is really about the both of us, and being a “P.M.E.N” won’t do anything to help support her. By the way, nice Jimmy Tarantula quip, though I think the name is Jiminy.

                “I know, I just wanted to avoid copy write problems. Anyway, Jimmy, you’re right. I don’t need the attention, I just need to make sure Lucy is happy and healthy. I can’t wait for the baby to come.”

                Me too Abe, me too.