A13 page Friday29 , January
TTryon ryon D Daily aily B Bulletin ulletin / / TThe he W World orld’’s s S Smallest mallest D Daily aily N Newspaper ewspaper
25, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013 page 29
A woman’s lot in life Why on earth is it that I, a woman who goes as rigid as a 14-year-old boy when an infant is plopped into his arms, whose idea of baby-proofing a house is to not let them indoors in the first place, and who fails to acknowledge any child as adorable or anything other than a destructive projectile missile, am suddenly giddy over the prospect of an expectancy? Not mine, lightning, the Duchess of Cambridge’s. Yes, the former Catherine Middleton, married 18 months to Prince William, is carrying the next king or queen within her, knocking Prince Harry, whom I assume is now shaking a celebratory bottle of champagne over himself, knowing he’ll never have to assume the claustrophobic role, further down the line of succession. But the Duchess is not well. Not well at all. As news reports breathlessly revealed (as well as a naive hospital staffer completely duped by an Australian radio host, who assumed the high-pitched and nasal voice of Queen Elizabeth and divulged private medical information), the Duchess was stricken with a morning sickness so severe that she could keep nothing down, was dehydrated and losing allimportant nutrients needed for the fetus. When I die and arrive in
heaven (provided God grades received was that now he had to on a curve), one thing I would actually work to eat instead of like very much to ask my Di- relying on the subsidized foodvine Creator is, “I get the pain stuffs in the Garden of Eden. of childbirth bit, thanks to Oh, and the serpent was Eve, but could you tell me why punished by having to move women, before contractions along on his belly for the rest even begin, also have to suffer of his life, but that didn’t really swollen legs, stop him from feet and faces, doing what he “I’m Just needed to do, as well as the inability to find Saying…” j u s t a s w i t h a comfortable certain divorce way to lay in attorneys. by Pam Stone order to sleep, But women, and are forced we poor women to empty their bladders every (or, you poor women who get five minutes, and also have to suckered into wanting kids after suffer bouts of vomiting that seeing store windows displaymay go on for months?” ing cute Baby Gap mannequins) If it’s all because of Eve, it have to physically retch for just seems to be a bit one-sided. months, search for a used circus Yes, she got tricked by the tent to wear, endure a seemserpent, but she owned up to the ingly eternal labor, and then, mistake when queried by God then, look forward to trying to and quietly took her sentence heal while being completely of punishment. She never tried sleep-deprived and listening to weasel out of it. to the complaints of your husBut Adam, with the behav- band, who now feels he’s not ior of a 6-year-old just caught getting enough attention. breaking a lamp, when queried Tain’t fair. about ingesting the forbidden I side with scientists who fruit, pointed to Eve, assigned theorize that Mother Nature all blame to her and, actually, ( p r o b a b l y d u r i n g a m o o d God, and said, “That woman swing) perhaps struck women you made? Pulling that rib out with morning sickness so that, of me? That woman that was all back in cave man days, they’d your idea and that I never even be too ill to run around and asked for? She gave it to me.” jeopardize the health of the feWay to go, Adam. tus while she was unknowingly And all the punishment he pregnant.
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Men, in the meantime, were given the green light to launch into the bed (or pile of rocks) of any passing woman, in order to populate the planet. And, since we’re talking about a time when one could easily die from something as simple as a tooth abscess or infected scrape, it was necessary to impregnate as many women as possible to keep the species thriving. Men even became particularly clever and got out of the whole “you now have to toil for your food” by oppressing the women and making sure they took on this task as well — gathering, cooking and later, walking behind a team of mules, baby on her hip, and plowing the back 40. So while we’ve come a long way (as deaths from Virginia Slims and stress-induced heart disease will attest), baby, we certainly still have a long way to go. But some things will never change: We’re born, we fall in love, we have kids and then we die, royal or commoner. So here’s my very best wishes to the Duke and Duchess for a safe pregnancy and a happy, healthy, royal heir. And William, you probably shouldn’t ask your grandmother if she could stay over for a couple of weeks to help change nappies.