To maternity and beyond

After it became clear that the button and the button hole on her non-pregnant-person pants were destined ne’er to meet again, at least not prenatally, my wife Kara finally surrendered this week, making the switch to maternity pants. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking; maternity pants look just like normal pants, except that they have an elastic band hidden under the shirt that allows so much growth that Kara could easily, if she were so inclined, sneak into a movie theater concealing a large soda, a bucket of popcorn and a teenaged walrus. This added functionality raises the obvious question: Why aren’t all pants maternity pants?

This question seems especially relevant to me right now, because Kara keeps dragging me to Pizza Hut, where I busily set to work growing a sympathy belly.

“I’m craving their creamy Italian salad dressing,” she tells me. To which an average person would reply, “Pizza Hut has salad?”

It does, unfortunately, and Kara can ignore its siren call no more than she can be disabused of the notion that a salad can serve as a meal. All by itself. Seriously.

“Please, no more Pizza Hut,” I implore her. “I’ve ingested more Pizza Hut than should be expected of any one man. Have mercy on me.”

But of course, pregnant women are not famous for having mercy upon the people responsible for their conditions. Like a twitching needle on a seismometer, she lets me know that there are precious few moments remaining before disaster strikes.

“If we don’t leave for Pizza Hut soon, I might get grouchy,” she says quietly, at which point I’ve already started the car.

Really, it’s nice that she wants to eat anything at all, as the first months of her pregnancy were marked by far more aversions than cravings, unless you count her sudden attraction to the toilet. She still hasn’t lost her superhuman sense of smell, though, which is so powerful that she could probably qualify to be an X-Man (named Nostril?) if only she could find a maternity leotard cool enough. At the very least, before her nose goes back to normal, she could probably pick up a few extra bucks at the airport sniffing luggage.

If you ever want to go as a pregnant lady for Halloween, just stuff a pillow up your shirt, and when the door opens, say, “Trick or…ew, what stinks?”

With her senses heightened and her squeamishness so easily triggered, supporting Kara by accompanying her to Pizza Hut is really the least I can do, though definitely not the least greasy. While she can order a salad for dinner and be content, I’m more from the school of thought that the proper place for a salad at dinnertime, absent hungry bunnies, is between the patty and the bun.

Besides, the place is not called Lettuce Hut. When I’m there, I have no choice but to order their shimmering, shiny pizza, which then allows me to fix my hair by the reflection off of the crust. We’ve eaten there so many times recently, I’m thinking of joining the pro wrestling circuit under the stage name Grease Trap. I’m still working out the details of my signature move, but it will definitely be called “the stuffed crust.”

I never thought I’d live to see the day where I’d be complaining about a woman forcing me to eat too much pizza, which is a phrase that had no meaning to me until very recently. With grease beginning to seep out of my pores, though, I’m starting to have many new health-related concerns, primarily that they’re going to put me in a pen at the county fair and make a contest out of which kid can catch me.

You can put Mike Todd in your purse and sneak him into the theater at mikectodd@gmail.com.