Say, what!?!?  Did we just hear that correctly?  Did she really just tell us to “have a happy abortion?”  And who in their effing right mind even has that on their mind as they’re saying goodbye to someone who is about to HAVE a baby….not abort one!  And the fact that I was wished a “happy abortion” is an oxymoron to begin with, as I seriously doubt women come out of an abortion clinic jumping for joy doing a heel kick.  So….I present Maniac #1

It was mid-November 2007 and I was less than a week away from having my first child, my beautiful daughter, Miriam.  I was in pharmaceutical sales at the time and one of my partners, who I could honestly write an entire book about because she was INSANE (I have more than a few people who would completely support this statement) asked if Dan and I would meet her for lunch so she could give us her present for Miriam. So we met her and her mother, who was visiting from out-of-town.

The lunch was really quite uneventful; we chatted about the baby, the pregnancy, how work was going since I had already been put on leave, and how we chose the baby’s name.  It was a typical lunch for someone who was about to have a baby.  I opened my gift – which was actually a hodgepodge of gifts from the clearance isle at Home Goods (they still had the red clearance tags on them) and we ate dessert.  S’mores.

And let me back up – I love the clearance isle at Home Goods so I am not knocking it by any means, but this woman projectile vomited to the world the fact that she lived on 23 acres of land and her home was worth $2 million, yet she couldn’t even drive three stores over to the actual Babies R Us and buy me a damn changing pad cover for $14.99??  To know this woman is to know the type of crazy that most people only attempt to describe when they’re referring to one of their “crazy” friends.  This woman though, total nut job. Quite frankly – indescribably wacko.

Anyway, as we were leaving, her mother, (who’d stayed relatively silent throughout the entire lunch) decided to give us her last-minute advice and best wishes.  Instead, what spewed out of her mouth with a smile on her face was “something, something, something (about motherhood) oh and ‘have a happy abortion!'”  Dan and I gasped.  We slowly stepped back as if to ward off this psychotic woman’s crazy rants that felt like they could actually have impact on our unborn child. Meanwhile, Maniac #1, my old partner, shrieked at her mother, “Mother!” as her mother realized what she has just said.

The mother gave a sort of half laugh and then apologized.  Then as she was trying to, I guess, make up for what she had just said, she went on to say it again!  Really!?  I kept thinking….just keep your damn mouth shut, moron!

In the immediate moment she uttered that statement, Dan and I shared a look of sheer shock, but as we got in the car we both let out the breaths we’d been holding in and started laughing.  We kept trying to consider the ways in which someone could confuse the two and make that kind of statement.  Like an, “Oh, clearly that could be confused with that” or “Well, I could see how she could have gotten that mixed up”  But each attempt we just felt ourselves reassuringly acknowledging the fact that there was no way possible for the two to become confused.  Not one conceivable way.

We also understood exactly how Maniac #1 was the way she was.  The old adage, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” wouldn’t exist if it weren’t true.

In this case, I think the apple is still dangling from the tree.

#maniac #crazy #really #confessionsofacorporatemom #pharma