When it's time to go, it's time to go
We sat at the stoplight. It was 5:56 a.m. and the light was red.
"Maybe I should run it," I said, wondering if this is how drivers feel sitting at the starting line at the Indianapolis 500. Well, at least the driver taking his pregnant wife to the hospital.
I didn't see a cop, but I'm one of those people who see cops like a deer sees a predator; if I can't see one, he's somewhere else getting coffee.
"Are you aware you ran a red light?" the cop would ask if I'd run the light, leaning into my car window happy as a puma on one of those 'Carnivores Gone Wild' programs.
"My God, man," I'd scream, pointing frantically at the dashboard clock. "They're inducing labor at 6 a.m. I need to help my wife breathe in like ... two hours."
Yeah, that wouldn't work.
The light turned green, I fought off the urge to turn into the McDonald's drive through for a quick Egg McMuffin, and pulled into the hospital parking lot on time.
Inducing labor is like going to a baseball game. If the game starts at 7:05 p.m., you show up at 6:45 p.m., find your seat, buy a couple of hotdogs, sing the "National Anthem," the first pitch is thrown at precisely 7:05 p.m. and you're drunk by the fourth inning.
It's just like that with inducing labor, except it's tougher to find a beer vendor.
Inducing labor must have been invented by a guy. It takes something natural and unpredictable and makes it conform to a rigid, almost mechanical schedule. Guys are comfortable with that. We like the ...
What the heck is that? ran through my head as the anesthesiologist prepared to jab a needle into my wife's spine. That's great. Needles make me feel like Al Gore must have felt the morning after the 2000 presidential election.
Al Gore (wakes up realizing he'd campaigned using his "abducted by space aliens" personality): Well, poo.
"We use a numbering system for pain," the nurse said to my wife. "Zero means no pain. Ten means the worse pain you can imagine."
Ten, I thought, staring at the doctor preparing to insert the catheter. Ten. Definitely 10.
"Where are you now?" the nurse asked.
Ten, 10, 10.
"Zero," my wife said. "Maybe one."
Liar, I thought. I feel faint.
Then everything happened so fast the only thing I remember is that the baby's now outside my wife. Oh, there was a lot of crying and wailing and whining during the delivery. It got so bad the nurse had to tell me to shut up.
Yeah, inducing labor's the way to go, guys. You won't feel a thing.
Oh, and if you see the beer vendor, send him this way.
