Preggy Brain Did it to Me

Writing Prompt #5.) Barefoot and hormonal...describe an incident that upset you when you were pregnant, but now looking back makes you laugh. For Mama Kat's Pretty Much World Famous Writers Workshop


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The days of being barefoot and pregnant are over for me. Three babies is my lot.

But let me take you back to those first hormonal months.
Pregnant with my first, I was still working with naughty teenagers.
I spent my days on the phone, or in my car, finding kids who wouldn't go to school.
Arranging education for them, hooking them up with interviews, enrolling them in courses.
On one such day I picked up a lad in South Auckland and took him to a job training course in Mangere.
We pulled up outside, I parked on the street, we went in. No drama.
The interview went well, the lad was accepted onto the course, he caught a ride home with the van.
I returned smiling to my car, content with a job well done as I fished in my bag for my car keys...

My keys weren't there.
And neither was my car.
Where did I park it?
I was sure it had been right out front...

As I stood on that sidewalk, wracking my hormonal brains, I scrabbled desperately for my non-existent keys.

I must have parked the car somewhere else, I thought, trying to remember where...
Until I saw the broken glass all over the road.

Cold sick dread washed over me.
My car had been stolen.
My keys weren't in my bag because I'd left them in the car.

Some opportunist had walked past, seen the keys hanging there, smashed the window and driven away, leaving me stranded and pregnant in South Auckland - the other side of the world from where I lived.

Returning to the Training Centre, I asked for help, trying to hold back my tears.
It turned out the thieves were boys from the course who had absconded and been reported missing.

I called the police. They told me I'd have to come in to the nearest Police Station to make a report - 10km away in Manurewa.
"But my car has been stolen!"
"Well then, you'll have to walk..."
"But I'm pregnant...!" I wailed, bursting into tears.

They relented and took my details over the phone.
My boss was kind when I called him; he told me to get a taxi home, at his expense.
My husband was kind, though he made more than a few snide remarks about Preggy Brain...

Later they found the car, abandoned out by the airport.
Tagged with spray paint, brakes and tyres worn down from all the burnouts those boys did, a "bong" stashed in the glove box. They sure took it for a ride, those naughty boys.

I stopped working soon after that, and I doubt I will ever return to that field of employment.

These days I can laugh about it. Ha. Ha. Ha.
I blame Preggy Brain.
Preggy Brain locked my keys in my car.
Preggy Brain left me stranded in South Auckland after I hung out the "COME TAKE ME" sign to a bunch of naughty schoolboys.

I have to laugh. Because my dear sweet hubby trots that story out every time I forget something, lose something, or do something dumb... which is fairly often.

"But I was pregnant..!" I wail, as if that should explain everything.
"Ahhhh yes," he retorts, "But what's your excuse now?"
♥

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{PS Have you read my story about what I did Before Kids? Here it is again: My Part in the Story: The Miracle of CLS}

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