Hilarious and disturbing, all at once...

 

Last night Stephan and I were wiped out by the heatwave and too tired to work and we had (amazingly) already caught up on everything in the DVR, so we toggled between an episode of "Whose Line" which is an awesome show that I think you should definitely start watching right now just to see how brilliant Wayne Brady is at improv, and this completely disturbing show on TLC called "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."   And, just in case your trigger-finger is itching to tell me just how long that sentence was, I want you to know that I know, and that I wrote it that way on purpose. 

Back to "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant." I'm sure you can imagine the prurient horror and fascination with which I watched this show, since I am still on the fence about the whole children issue.   This show is actually hilarious and disturbing at the same time, so much so that it almost fell into the realm of a German absurdist film, or an old Saturday Night Live sketch of "Sprockets."    Part of this effect is achieved by the totally horrible reenactments, and how the people in these reenactments look almost nothing like the actual people involved in the "Unknown Birth" scenarios, and how the acting is bad, and the lighting is bad, and the whole thing looks like a locally-filmed ad for Massengil disposal douce-- right up to the moment when you're back from the commercial break, and the actress portraying the unsuspecting pregnant woman starts having a baby.....in the bathroom of the chicken store where she works, or in the bathroom of the campground (don't even get me started on the germs involved there), or on her neighbor's front lawn.    Yeah, these were all real scenarios, and each and every time you're like "Really?  An eight pound baby, and you had no idea?  REALLY????"

 

And, to answer your next question, no--   most of them weren't heavy to the point where they wouldn't notice an eight pound baby just hanging out up in there, but for the record, I have some zaftig friends, and every single one of them felt every moment of their pregnancies.  In fact, everyone I know who has EVER been pregnant has had at least one symptom, and even after watching this whole show, I am still beyond baffled by this phenomenon, although I feel it is fair to add that NONE of the subjects interviewed during this particular program looked like they belonged in MENSA, if you know what I mean.  But-- to not even know you're pregnant until you're on the front lawn and the baby is coming out?  That is not right.    Also, how weird is it to have to take that "complete surprise" baby home with you, when you had no cotton-pickin idea you were even pregnant?   Like, one day you're minding your own business, and then this baby just sneaks up on you like that?  It's almost.....rude. 

 

Also, in case you're following the story of "I wrote two books and they're both coming out on May 5th," you can now pre-order my website book (Million Dollar Website is the title), and I did a radio interview about that book this morning that is set to air this weekend (I will put up that link on Friday), and I finally scanned the "Marie Claire Pop Culture Pyramid," so you can see my book right next to Jennifer Garner's new movie.  Sweet!

Comments

[Rachel]

1. I have a friend that "didn't know she was pregnant." I think she knew though. But her husband didn't. And I heard a lot of stories about, like, 8th graders, that didn't know and then had to call their moms from track practice or something.

2. I can't believe they made a show about it though. Just don't start watching the show Baby Delivery (or whatever it's called) when they show REAL PEOPLE HAVING BABIES. It makes me even more not want to have a kid.

3. If I ever did get pregnant, I'd hope that I didn't know about it until it was born, so I had to skip all that madness, and just had one, like, REALLY bad day.

4. OH MY GOD YOU'RE IN MARIE CLAIRE NEXT TO JENNIFER GARNER!

4a. Jennifer Garner is from West Virginia. wOOt!

5. I had something else to say, and I forgot what it was.