Maternity Leave (23 page)

I checked the travel bike and suitcase and carried on my laptop bag, backpack and purse. To make walking slightly more awkward, I had a helmet hanging off my laptop bag, a Nalgene water bottle attached to my purse and one cycling shoe velcroed to each strap of my backpack. I felt absurd, but no one at the airport seemed to notice. Chivalry was officially dead; not a single person attempted to help the single pregnant woman with three bags.

Unfortunately, the only person to notice my condition was the woman in the seat next to me. She was a mother of three and could not wait to commiserate about pregnancy, but assure me of the rewards of motherhood. This arrangement was not going to work. First, the woman was a liar. Her children were seated across the aisle and, objectively, they were nothing special. Second, I was very committed to sleeping during the flight. I generally fell asleep before takeoff, woke up during the landing and took a cat nap while the plane was taxiing.

The plane started to roll towards the runway and she was still talking. I unhooked my helmet and put it on my head for takeoff, assuming that this was a level of crazy that would distance the woman. Not so. Next, I started rhythmically banging my head against the window. That did the trick. Convinced I was insane, she abruptly stopped talking. Nap time.

* * *

Like the rest of the Panhandle, Mobile was a catcher’s mitt for hurricanes and rednecks. It was surprising that the Champions Bar case was not a hurricane case, but rather a neon sign case. A neon sign company had improperly fabricated the Champions Bar sign, causing it to catch fire and burn down an entire strip mall. Each tenant in the mall, including Champions Bar, suffered damage and was represented by a different attorney. The defendants were the sign fabricator, the electrician who installed the sign, and the owner of Champions Bar. I represented the subrogation interests of the Champions Bar’s insurance company. Consequently, Champions Bar was both suing and being sued in the same case. Champions Bar had defense counsel in addition to me as plaintiff’s counsel. There were nine attorneys on the case. We were all in town to depose four experts and take the depositions of the employees and corporate representatives of the sign and electrical company.

On the boredom scale, deposing an expert in the fabrication of neon signs fell somewhere between a full Catholic wedding Mass and reading the tax code. At the end of the day, I learned about transformers, ceramic bushings versus plastic bushings, conduits, the importance of caulking around conduits, and that the conference room of Banker, Bolt & White LLP has 486 ceiling tiles. I was the only attorney not to ask the deponent a question. In my opinion, the dead horse was sufficiently beaten by the time it was my turn.

Lunch was in the presence of Mobile’s legal boys’ club. The topics of conversation ranged from hunt’n to fish’n, occasionally deviating into red state politics. The day was shaping up to be the longest period I’d gone without speaking since I was a year old.

When the workday came to an end, I went for a long bike ride that passed through a state park, a 300-year-old graveyard, mansions, trailer parks, beaches, and farms before arriving in downtown Mobile. Mobile is very proud of its confederate heroes and has statues of them throughout the city. At least Germany has the good sense not to honor Heinrich Himmler as part of its “heritage.” There was also a pre-revolutionary fort in the city called Fort Conde. I rode my bike into the fort and looped around before being kicked out.

On my way back from Mobile, I could feel my period starting. I pulled into a grocery store to pick up tampons, but couldn’t find any. There were pads, but no tampons. There was a gray-haired employee at the end of the isle and I asked her if they had any tampons in the back.

“You mean Satan’s little cotton fingers? No! This is a good Christian grocer and we don’t sell that fornicatin’ stuff.”

“No,” I said, thinking she’d misunderstood. “Tampons.” I had no idea what she was talking about and my best guess was that in hick-speak, tampon sounded a lot like vibrator.

“I’ll tell you one final time,” she said, “we don’t carry Satan’s little cotton fingers. Now grab a pad and move along.”

I left and went to the next store I saw. Once again, pads but no tampons. I grabbed one pad out of the bathroom dispenser and attached it onto the thick pad already sewn into my cycling shorts and rode thirty miles home feeling like I was wearing a diaper.

Fortunately, the CVS in Daphne carried Satan’s little cotton fingers. I Googled the phrase when I returned to my hotel. I clicked on the first link and it provided the following information:

“Toxic Shock Syndrome is God’s way of punishing unsaved harlots who choose Satan’s cotton fingers over a Godly pad.”–Pastor Deacon Fred

The next link I clicked on had helpful testimonials:

I was arrested last month for setting fire to the tampon display in my local Eckerd Drugs in Griffin, Georgia. I spent three days in jail and received a $45,000 fine but it was all worth it. The number of women whose vaginas will not be abused by Satan’s little finger makes it all worth it.–Mary Beth Salliston

The entire girls swim team at Rossington High School owes you our lives. We don’t attend as many meets as we did but at least we aren’t going to Hell now.–Ruth Whitley

Since I stopped using SATAN’S DIRTY FINGER my marriage has gotten even better. Before I gave them up, my husband was jealous of the tampons and made me feel like a whore. Now I am a whore for Jesus! God Bless YOU!–Lilly Penergrass

I read about the horrors of tampons and emailed the links to all of my friends before falling asleep.

On Tuesday, work was more of the same. I decided to ditch work and race my bike at the professional race in Bristol, Tennessee. I figured I could update the client about the depositions after reading the transcripts. I registered for the race Tuesday evening for a steep $155 fee, and began the trek north. I broke the trip into two days because it wasn’t possible for me to drive ten hours straight without napping into a guardrail or median. I finished the trip at 2:00 a.m. the day of the race.

The reward at the end of the long night of driving was that the official race hotel was an 8 Repus. It’s actually called Super 8, but since it was the exact opposite of “super,” cyclists began calling it an 8 Repus long ago. My late arrival was a blessing in disguise because even though I’m borderline narcoleptic, extreme exhaustion helps when trying to fall asleep on sheets with a higher cigarette-burn count than thread count. Normally, I opted to camp rather than stay in a crappy hotel, but I didn’t feel like packing a tent and sleeping bag in addition to my other luggage for this trip. On the plus side, the Empathy Belly was in the trunk and wasn’t coming out for four days.

Bristol was a four-day race comprising five stages: a prologue, two road races, a time trial and a criterium. A prologue is a short time trial. A time trial is a race against the clock. A race against the clock means drafting is not allowed. Thus, instead of being in the
peloton
, riders take off at thirty-second intervals and the rider that completes the course with the lowest time wins. A time trial is generally between ten and thirty miles, whereas a prologueis usually two to four miles. The Bristol prologue was two and a half miles, the time trial was ten miles, the road stages were seventy-two and seventy-eight miles and the criterium was sixty minutes plus five laps. By comparison, the men’s road races were 112 and 118 miles, and criterium was ninety minutes plus five laps. Clearly, this race was not being promoted by a feminist.

A cycling stage race honors the winner of each stage as well as the winner of the overall race, also known as the general classification. The winner of the general classification is the cyclist who completes all of the stages with the lowest cumulative time. The Bristol Stage Race awarded cash prizes to the top ten finishers of each stage and the top fifteen finishers of the overall race.

Because I was on my foldable Bike Friday, I was thankful for the injustice of riding less than the men. I was especially thankful the prologuewas only two and a half miles and that the ten mile time trial was mostly uphill. While the foldable bike was clearly a disadvantage during the road races and criterium, the disadvantage was not nearly as pronounced as in the time trials. Because drafting was legal in the road race and criterium, my inferior bike was shielded from the wind by the
peloton
. However, in a time trial, it is the cyclist against the wind and aerodynamics are paramount. When racing a prologue or time trial at home, I ride on my time trial bike with aero bars, use a disc wheel and wear a pointy helmet and skin suit, all of which are especially suited to aerodynamics. I was without my aero-gear for this prologueand time trial. The only reason the missing gear didn’t kill me was because there was only so much time I was capable of losing during a two and a half mile prologue or traveling uphill, where aerodynamics are not as important since the speed into the wind is not as fast.

Afterward, on my ten-hour drive back to Mobile, I had plenty of time to reflect upon the race. The prologue wasn’t so bad. I placed eighth, fifteen seconds behind the winner and a minute ahead of last place. Likewise, my sixth place finish in the uphill time trial was decent. I believed both finishes would have been even better if I were on the proper bike with the proper equipment. The road races and criterium were a different story entirely. As it turned out, my fear of sprinting in a pack of riders extended to a fear of descending down a steep mountain with a pack of riders.

The mountains in Bristol were not steep enough or long enough to spread the field. Each mountain descent contained a pack of at least forty women. During each descent, I fell behind and had to work furiously to catch up to the
peloton
when I hit the flat section, wasting energy. This was a problem in a four-day race with hills and small mountains; it would be devastating in a three-week race in higher mountains like the Tour de West. I found it somewhat amusing that by living in flat Florida, I’d managed to race for over a year without noticing my phobia of descending with company. On a positive note, my fearful and inept descending was nowhere near the level of my fearful and inept sprinting. Other than the women who got dropped from the draft and didn’t finish the road races and criterium, I came in last place on each stage, tucked safely six feet behind and to the left of the pack.

In cycling, each rider finishes with her front wheel practically glued to the rear wheel ahead of her. Thus, everyone who finishes together in the
peloton
is awarded the same time; though first, second and third place often have bonus seconds subtracted from their overall time as a reward. Consequently, even though I finished last on the sprint finishes of the road race and criterium, technically a few feet from the bunch, I was awarded the same time as the rest of the
peloton
. By placing eighth and sixth in the prologue and time trial, respectively, and not losing time in the road race and criterium, my overall placing in the race was fifth. Awards were provided to riders placed ten deep for each stage, and fifteen deep overall. As a result, I was the recipient of fifty, seventy-five and one hundred twenty dollars for each placing. I deducted this windfall from the gas money I spent on driving 1,200 miles, staying four days in a hotel, and paying a $155 entry fee. In spite of this success, I drove back to Mobile without any leads for a professional team. On top of all of this, I could feel a cold coming on.

* * *

On my return flight, I was selected for enhanced scrutiny at security. I suppose I looked slightly more like a terrorist than the eighty-year-old woman drooling on her colostomy bag in the wheelchair next to me, but it was a tough call. I carried the same stuff I’d brought with me, only this time I had my Empathy Belly slung across my back. I wanted to take advantage of not having it on my stomach, which makes my back ache, at least until I arrived back home in Tampa.

I took off my shoes and put them in a tray with my purse. I took my laptop out of my bag and placed it in another tray. The helmet and bike shoes took up a third tray and my Empathy Belly a fourth. I set my two bags in fifth and sixth position in the caravan, then moved into the enhanced security area, put my feet on the big footprints, and waited to be felt up by security. The wait was long because I had to wait for a woman. By the time the female frisker showed up, my Empathy Belly was going through the machine. It was being strictly scrutinized by three attendants. “What is this?” they yelled to me.

“It’s an Empathy Belly,” I said, then added, “I teach sex education. This is a pregnancy simulator to teach safe sex.”

“Abstinence is the only safe sex,” replied the screener, perhaps exceeding her job mandate.

Shit, I forgot I was in Ala-fucking-bama, to quote
My Cousin Vinny
. What to do? Do I point out that the pill, patch, Depo-Provera, condoms, diaphragms, intrauterine devices, spermicide, sponge, cervical cap, oral sex, tying tubes, hysterectomy and vasectomy were also perfectly acceptable methods of avoiding pregnancy, not to mention that pulling out and the rhythm method would get you by in a pinch. My sixth sense told me this should not be my final answer.

“Yes ma’am,” I said, “that’s what I teach. Abstinence.”

“That’s great. God’s work is what that is. Problem is, in looking at that there screen, you appear to have more than three ounces of liquids in that there belly, so you can’t bring it on the plane.”

Technically, there were eleven pounds of water in the belly and six pounds of water in the bladder pouch.

“I’m giving a seminar, I have to have this belly with me.”

“Oh, bless your heart. Tell you what, you can check the belly in the belly of the plane.”

The woman cracked up at the dual use of the word “belly.”

“Thanks,” I said. “My plane leaves in twenty minutes, how do you get it on there?

“Follow me.”

Ten minutes and fifty dollars later, I checked my third “bag.” I practically flew towards my gate since I was now traveling light; with only two bags, a purse, an oversized maternity outfit and dangling bike equipment. I arrived at the gate with ten minutes to spare. Now my only concern was whether the belly would make it through the plane change at Atlanta and whether I would make it to baggage claim to pick it up without running into anyone from my office in an un-knocked-up state. In spite of these fears, I slept soundly through the flight.