The Sports Gal

For years I've reading a column by Bill Simmons (aka The Sports Guy) over at ESPN. He's witty and insightful and has a better command of pop culture than even Ken Jennings. Before the start of last year's football season he decided to let his wife make picks even though she didn't watch football. It was a test to see if his experience and acumen would win out over her novice common sense. She won.
Her only condition for being willing to go along with the whole thing was that she would be able to include a small section where she could talk about anything she wanted and he couldn't edit it. Her latest is quite good and I'm sure there are people in this audience that can relate.

Right now, I'm eight and a half months pregnant and have a giant bowling ball in my stomach. I can't sleep and I pee every hour on the hour. Every time I lay down, I feel like someone's kicking field goals inside me. My daughter constantly wants me to hold her even though I can't hold a bag of groceries at this point. I'm always 20 degrees hotter than everyone else, but Bill lowers the air conditioning every time I'm not looking so I call him the Air Conditioning Nazi. I'm very emotional and can't watch any movie where a dog gets killed or someone might die of cancer because I don't want the water works to start flowing. If I seem especially mean in these rants over the next few weeks, don't blame me -- blame God for deciding that it would be a good idea for women to have babies and men to watch football every Sunday. I wish Bill was carrying this kid and I could go over to a friend's house to watch TV for eight straight hours under the flimsy excuse that "it's my job." Yeah, it was also your job not to knock me up in time for football season.

Just know that I'm extremely concerned. Our second baby is due right between Game 7 of the World Series and the start of the NBA season, and during the middle of football season as well. Bill claims this won't be a major problem. Ohhhhhh-kay. I keep having this nightmare that I'll be in labor in agonizing pain, but every time I look up for support from Bill, he'll be pretending to care while he's really trying to figure out how to get split-screen on the 13-inch hospital TV. If that happens, I will be the first pregnant woman to file for divorce at the same time they're administering the epidural. The other problem is that we can't decide on a name. We're having a son and Bill thinks we should name it after him because he's a third and the kid would be a fourth. I love the logic of that one -- sure, let me carry the kid for 10 months, and then we'll name it after you. That's an awesome idea. Even when he jokes that we should name him D'Bill or LaBill so he'll be a good athlete, it makes me mad. Everything makes me mad right now. Did I mention that I'm eight and a half months pregnant?

I refuse to discuss names any more, I want to see Bill's performance in the final days of the pregnancy first. If he's watching sports every spare second and saying things like, "Why did you have to go into labor during Game 6 of the World Series, what were you thinking?", then I'm naming this kid Peyton Manning Simmons and that will be that. Anyway, I'm sorry this week's rant isn't about Britney throwing her career down the toilet, but I had to get that off my swollen chest.

Hon, let's never schedule a baby for October, ok?