I, Youngish White Guy, Respect You, 8 Months Pregnant Woman…
…Too Much To Offer You My Seat
I respect you 100 percent as you travel on the subway to your paycheck maker in your final gestation month. You’re an independent career woman not turning on your Out of Office message until you feel your baby crowning under your desk. Females like you don’t even need a man to produce a baby, just Oprah, some maple syrup, and a light saber.
I’m confident you don’t need my seat on this hot, overcrowded 8:45 am train.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to engage you in a creepy little eye dance or touch your upper arm, shoulder, or other non-sexual skin area to get your attention, then mouth, “Do you want to sit?” while pointing at my lap area.
I’ve scrolled through the hashtag MeToo enough while taking a dump at work. Also, I have a female cat. Plus, my seat is too cold with the AC blowing down my neck.
Why am I even calling it “my” seat? I don’t own it. New York State does, so really it’s Governor Cuomo’s seat to give away. I would of voted for Cynthia Nixon in the primaries but I didn’t like how mean Miranda was to Steve over the years.
Also, I don’t vote. But I’ll say this: if I had some bigwig job at the MTA I’d propose unlimited seating for pregnant women and disabled people — separate cars even.
In the meantime, I hear pelvic floor exercises are more effective to do standing up.
If anyone needs to be sitting right now it’s me. My legs are hollow jello sticks from my buddy’s app launch party last night. It’s like Uber for CBD oil and Captain Morgan shots. You’re biologically designed to push a head out of your hoo-ha so clearly you’re much stronger than me.
One time I tried to lift a 20 lb dumbbell to prove I was man enough to my dad. I strained my left pinky so bad I couldn’t use Slack for six days and he still doesn’t respect me. If you can endure a 60 hour labor, standing up for 35 minutes must be a breeze.
One of my favorite things about New York City is that women are so direct. When you feel like having sex you tell us, and when you don’t, you grab our balls and twist with a firm verbal “NO!” The last thing you need is another white guy telling you what to do with your knocked-up body.
I’m positive if you really needed to sit down you’d say something.
Look at you with one hand death-gripped on the bar jostling back and forth to instinctively soothing your unborn babe, while the other defends your stomach from elbows and switchblades. What an amazing mother you’re going to be!
Oh my god, shit, sorry. Who am I to assume that you’re in the family way? I’m no uterus doula or Shaman. To give you the respect you truly deserve as my equal, I will look down at my phone for the duration of our trip, furrowing my brow as I pretend to care about space trash.
Lisa Pertoso is an entrepreneur, writer, improviser, and former dater in NYC. She recently birthed a tiny lady human, and thanks all the people of color and the one white dude who offered her their seat on the train. Follow @lapertoso here, Twitter + Instagram, and catch up on her blog 100 First Dates.
