Lottery Winner

Last evening I was walking the hound when I received a call from Tiny. I was mid poop-scoop when she called so I let it go to voicemail. When I listened to the message she sounded pretty distressed and asked me to call her right back. These are dreaded calls.

I called Tiny and she said "We need to talk, can you come over?" I said sure and asked if everything was OK? Tiny said "I'll explain, can you come over right now?" Her voice was shaky like she was really frightened, for whatever reason my first thought was that she had an intruder in her house (oh, the irony) but she hung up on me before I could clarify.

I dropped the dog off at home and got in the car. As I raced to Tiny's house I ran through the list of possible crisises. Of course, my first thought was that she was pregnant. However, I sensed some anger in her voice so I tried to think of what else it could be. [While I was driving a Pink Floyd song came on the radio. It was a typically spacey, trippy song, one that I probably got stoned to in high school. It lent a very eery but serene mood to the drive despite my speed.] The runners up to pregnancy on the list of possibilites were: someone saw me out with Tenant last week, she had an STD, she was seeing someone else, or she found out about the blog (reason enough to be angry, right?). When I pulled onto Tiny's block The Doors' Riders on the Storm came on. Some DJ was really fucking with me.

Between cutting people off and burning up my clutch I weighed the pros and cons of the possible situations. What is the worst case scenario? AIDS has to be the worst, right? A death sentence. A pregnancy seemed like a good alternative to AIDS, at least there is a cure for pregnancy. I suppose that's a death sentence of another kind for me, but I found myself silently rooting for a baby. You really need to review your life and your decision making matrix when you're rooting for an unplanned pregnancy with a girl you don't even like. Or, when best case scenario is getting caught out on a date, red handed, with another girl. That's the best outcome; caught with another girl.

I knocked on Tiny's door. When she opened it she said "Hi, do you want to take a walk?". I thought Uh, no, I don't want to take a walk. I just tied the land speed record in the tunnel under Logan Circle, now you want to go for a walk? What is this, the The Amazing Race? I think I just said "WHAT?" Tiny sensed my frustration and in a hushed tone, like our parents were in the next room, said "I'm pregnant, can we go for a walk?"

So, there I had it, my boys can swim. Tiny was frantic, nervously walking in circles, looking for her purse even though it was on her shoulder. We were in her front foyer, which is 3'x 3', turning in circles trying to get past each other. I opened the door and stepped aside. Tiny burst out.

This isn't the first time I've encountered this situation. When I was 25 I had a one night stand with a girl that lived in my apartment building. A few weeks later I got a call from her in the middle of the afternoon asking me to come see her when I got home, she had something important to talk about. She wouldn't tell me over the phone, so I left work and went directly to the apartment. When I got there she was smoking and drinking a glass of wine and told me, just as unceremoniously as Tiny did, that she was pregnant. I don't know why I expect the girl to soften the blow and deliver the news with some bedside manners, it's not like they receive the information in a delicate way, peeing on a stick in a bathroom.

As Tiny and I walked down her street she told me that her period had been very irregular for the past few months, so she went to see her OBGYN four weeks ago for a check up. They found a small cyst, but otherwise she was healthy. However, yesterday morning, while at the gym, she just didn't feel right so she bought two pregnancy tests at the pharmacy. Both tests immediately come up positive. She called her OBGYN who told her that she wasn't pregnant during her office visit (an ultra sound showed nothing) so she was probably just two or three weeks pregnant.

This is all great background information to me, but the big question on my mind was, what the fuck are we going to do about it? Tiny was chatting away and practically running down the sidewalk. I, however, felt like the concrete was swallowing me. Emotionally I felt almost nothing. I wasn't surprised, I wasn't nervous, and I can't even say I felt any fear. I was totally void of emotion aside from maybe some anticipation; How will this work itself out? As we rounded another corner I asked the big question (while leading the witness). I said "So, I really have no interest in being a daddy, what are we going to do about this...our...situation?" Tiny agreed that this wasn't the right situation to bring a baby into and that we should end the pregnancy.

A very small sense of relief came over me. It was slight, though.

Tiny is going to the doctor this week and I told her I would like to go with her. She thinks that she will probably have to wait a week or two before she can have the abortion. So in the meantime my girlfriend is pregnant, and she's not even really my girlfriend. What do I do now, move into a trailer and grow a mullet?

You may be wondering what fantastic method of birth control we were using. When we first started having sex we always used condoms. However, after a few months Tiny said she was on the pill and suggested we not use them any longer. Therefore, for the past few months we've relied on her birth control alone, which is 99.99% effective. Tiny claims that she was religious about taking her pill everyday, at teh same time, without exception. And I believe her 100%. I guess we're just lucky.

Tiny figured out that she probably got pregnant a two weeks ago, on a Saturday night after we had dinner at Bistro du Coin. I have no idea how she figured that out, I'll just accept it and move on, but I blame all this on the French. They've never been able to stop anything and I think their food and wine affected Tiny's birth control. Fucking surrender monkeys. My sperm stomped over her birth control like the German's over the Maginot Line. Ninety-nine percent effective my ass.

I have so many questions. What is my role in the upcoming abortion? Is that covered by medicare? Do I pay for it? What does an abortion cost these days? Do they take Master Card? I suddenly wish I paid more attention during the recent congressional votes. Can I go out with Tenant again? When? Can I have sex with Tenant? Did Tiny do this on purpose? Is the baby someone elses'? How long after an abortion do you have to wait before you can break up with the girl? Is it a boy or a girl?

I'm simply being honest. All these things crossed my mind in the past twelve hours.