Two true stories:
When I used to work in advertising, people were always coming in to sell us on their lame advertising platforms. There were the traditional sales reps from TV, magazines, newspaper, etc., but the really terrible ones were for the non-traditional media. Urinal cakes. Crop circles (yes, you have your logo ‘engraved’ into a field of corn), beach prints, condom wrappers, whatever. The sales reps for these media were always really odd, maybe because you have to be pretty odd to take on a job selling ad space on a condom wrapper.
Once, this company came in that was putting little TV screens in elevators. They were selling ads on them. In wasn’t the weirdest idea by any means, but it was pretty stupid. There point was that people in elevators have nothing to entertain them for the 30 seconds, on average, they are in the elevator, so they’d definitely be interested in these screens.
The woman who was pitching us was an odd lady, who was very, very pregnant. She went through her pitch. Something about it must have really annoyed me, because when she was done I spent about ten minutes explaining why I thought it was a stupid idea—that people in elevators are thinking about where they are headed and that whatever info they consume in the elevator will immediately be forgotten.
Nothing unusual about that—sales reps are used to rejection. But this woman, she took it hard. She started to cry. Right there in the meeting. Sob actually, saying that she had an unborn baby to feed and why was I being so unreasonable and mean.
It was awkward. At least for everyone else in the room. I am unmoved by crying pregnant women, so as she was crying I asked her if she need us to validate her parking.
Second story. I am in the grocery store yesterday, in the produce section. There is another woman in the section with me who is also very pregnant. I notice her but nothing more. I’m a little preoccupied because I’m trying to remember if I like Macintosh apples better than Honeycrisp apples? Or do I go with Fuji once again?
Suddenly, the woman starts talking to me.
“Yeah, I’m pregnant. Get over it.”
“Huh?” I ask, unsure if she is talking to me.
“Year right. Whatever,” she answers, clearly disgusted with me for some reason and walks off. I am confused. Profoundly confused. So confused I forget to buy apples all together, which was the whole point of my coming to the store. What did I do to provoke this anger?
So I am wondering, what is it about me that pregnant women find abhorrent? Is it a cruel evolutionary warning to them that I will make a bad provider for their children? Or am I inexplicably acting hostile toward these women in ways I’m unaware of?
In any case, please let this serve as my preemptive apology for anything upsetting I do to any pregnant women in the future. I don’t mean whatever it is I’m doing. All I want is to buy apples and mock elevator ads. It’s as simple as that, honest.