BY POPULAR DEMAND: My reflections on Woman- and Mother-hood (& other related issues)
You asked, we listened.
In the spirit of Sauna Shenanigans, I thought it would be good to document, in no particular order, some things I have seen over the last couple of weeks.
Firstly, some sort of allegory (or parable?). A woman pushing a baby in a pram (a.k.a. stroller) down the same hill where I witnessed the middle-aged biker decapitate himself. (🕊️R.I.P.🕊️ ; story linked below.)
I see the woman as I turn left down onto the hill (which is only a gentle slope, about a 150 meters or so long, and ends with a perpendicular road at the bottom). She’s got a head start of 4 or 5 car-lengths, but I’m gaining ground, and eventually I realize I’ll have to overtake her at some point. There’s just too much hill left; too much to just hover behind her. (Depending on the situation, I’d argue that it’s perfectly acceptable—and even polite—to hover for a few seconds. For example, if there’s a shop/house/some other place you’re headed that the person in front is about to walk past, it doesn’t make sense to overtake them just to then get in their way. Here, though, I’m in no-man’s land.)
I slow down to buy some time. Luckily, I’m still far enough behind her that I’m outside of “hovering” territory (although I am perhaps right on the bubble of “lurking”). My options are:
Downshift like an F1 driver overtaking a flagging opponent on a straightaway: set my jaw, lock my gaze into a thousand-yard stare, break into a power-walk and surge past her. But this of course risks spooking her if she hears my aggressive-sounding footsteps.
Continue on at my improbably/suspiciously slow pace. But this also risks spooking her if she turns around.
Cross the road. But we’re on the left side of the hill and I’ve got to turn left at the bottom, so she might take it the wrong way if she sees me making a big show of steering clear, as if she is giving off some sort of repulsive odor. (You never know if someone is having confidence issues, and this is the straw that’ll break the camel’s back.) For the record, I wouldn’t normally be on eggshells, but I was still recovering from a bizarre incident that’d happened a few weeks before, which I’ll talk about in another post. Not incidentally, this one also involved a woman with a stroller.
Speaking of strollers (a.k.a. prams), this was another moving part—not necessarily a confounding one, but one worth considering in the name of due diligence (especially after the aforementioned incident): the kid. What were we dealing with here? I had to be prepared, in case I had to acknowledge it for some reason on the way past. The stroller is facing downhill, so I actually haven’t seen its occupant yet, but I do have reason to believe it is occupied, otherwise she is just cooing/rambling on in a high-pitched baby-voice to herself.
Although perhaps she was grieving; this was her way of saying goodbye to a child/life that she never got to know…
~ ~ For Sale: Pram/Stroller,NeverLightly Used ~ ~
Grim. And unlikely. We’ll rule that out.
She may well have been pushing something, but it then hits me that there was every chance it wasn’t necessarily a human—you just never know these days in this neck of the woods. You see lots of folks (mostly women, but by no means all) pushing around Pomeranians, Chihuahuas, and all those other bug-eyed, wheezing, walnut-brained, “toy” breeds (those affronts-to-nature that seemingly exist solely as tributes to human selfishness; those reminders that not all innovation is necessary or worthwhile).
But it looked a bit too much like a proper baby stroller for that. No; there was definitely some sort of “traditional” baby in there. But even this didn’t guarantee anything. It could have been filled by a non-living baby; not non-living as in dead, but inanimate: e.g., she could have been a high schooler given one of those test babies to see if you can keep it alive for 48 hours or whatever (I never had to do this, but I’ve heard this exists). Or she could’ve been one of the weirdos who get those creepily realistic Reborn™ dolls. (They’ve gotten pretty good at this, in fairness. See if you can tell which one’s the doll!?)
Trick question—they’re both real! Gotcha!!
(Here’s one of those dolls, though, just for reference, so that I don’t leave you hanging.)
See what I mean? Freaky….1
It’s funny, though, because I can’t figure out if it’s more or less freaky than the people who get these sorts of lifelike dolls but of various fictional characters. (For the record, I am only aware of these thanks to my research, and definitely not because I am a proud owner of anything of the sort.)
What the fuck is going on here? These things aren’t cheap by the way. Who’s buying them? Fetishists of some form or fashion, would be my first thought. (Obviously, this is mere speculation. Still, though, even if I did have experience with this sort of thing2, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. Not that there’s any shame in it. Everyone has their “thing”.)
Anyway, time for a quick break. We’ll come back to the Headless Hill lady soon, but first, a word from our new official sponsor: BabyLove™ All-Purpose Dolls, made with patented “RealFeel™” silicone-based blend: dishwasher safe, microwaveable (within reason), lifetime guarantee3.
(Okay, I confess: all three are in fact dolls. Teehee!)
(which I don’t!!)
Ts&Cs apply.