Random Musing #12: Choosing Your Tenses

Due dates are stupid.

Not to sound like a tantrum-prone toddler, but I really have nothing more profound or mature to say on that subject. "Here, Crazy Preggo, we don't even have a full scientific understanding of what physiological processes initiate labor, but we'll give you a specific 24-hour period to pin your hopes and dreams on and broadcast out to the world. Hope it works out for you. Love, Your Doc." Bah.

Today is my due date, but I really haven't been that hung up on it. Honest. That may have something to do with the fact that I was 3+ weeks late (so sorry, Mom and Dad -- I have a newfound guilt complex being on this side of things), so I always figured that bitchy karma would thwart an on-time delivery. But even if you don't care about the exact date, some funny things happen when you transition from talking about your due date in the future tense...to the present tense...to the (sigh) past tense. The particular tense either makes strangers 1) endearingly excited, 2) visibly anxious, or 3) [presumably] depressingly sympathetic. (I'll verify that latter response for you tomorrow.)

When the future tense was in effect -- especially the very near future -- complete strangers would get so excited that you almost wouldn't have been surprised if they'd shown up in your hospital room. On my mall walk yesterday, the store clerks were so helpful and talkative and sweet. The lady at the makeup counter at Neiman even loaded me up with a bunch of free samples as she told me about her son's birth 24 years ago -- a vast improvement over the typical robotic, snooty condescension you generally get there. The future tense seems to prompt everyone to relive their own blissful memories of baby's arrival. It's the best.

But then today when I had to use the present tense, I seemed to turn into some sort of leper or ticking time bomb or napalm-filled-water-balloon-being-dangled-precariously-over-a-bed-of-nails. When the man on the T gave me his seat and then asked when I'm due -- "Today!" -- I thought the whole row of passengers was going to clear out; nobody wanted to be too close to the dangerously pregnant chick. But guys, I swear I'm not going to spontaneously explode baby all over you. It's just a due date, hardly more reliable than your daily astrological forecast.

And it's not just strangers. Even my non-human surroundings don't know how to comprehend a due date come and gone. Our due date countdown clock is now frantically flashing all zeroes, as if the world has just ended and it has no idea how to proceed. The pregnancy tracking emails I get (you know..."This week your baby's the size of a rutabaga!"...that kinda thing) just switched from updates about fetal development to congratulating me on the newborn I don't yet have. My What to Expect iPhone app reads, "Countdown: You are past your due date. What the $*&# are we going to do now??" (Okay, fine, I made up that last part.)

I'm not really expecting the past tense to be much better. Got that sense this morning when a gruff Boston traffic cop stopped screaming at cars to sympathetically remark, "Oh man, you look so ready to be done!" (The funny waddle gave it away, I guess.) I wasn't even feeling sorry for myself until he pointed that out.

So I think I've learned my lesson. Instead of scaring people away with the present tense, or eliciting Stranger Pity with the past, I'm going to stick with the more fun future tense: from here on out, my due date is always going to be "Tomorrow!"