Are You Barren?

That's what a lady asked me at Walmart the other day.

"Are you barren?"

Uh, not only was that a bit personal, but does anyone even use that word anymore?

Granted, I do believe she was born around 1874, so maybe that was the word de jour back in the pioneer days, but come on... barren?

And the truth is that normally I would brush off a little linguistic faux pas like that, but girlfriend was carrying a Coach bag and wearing some ultra fab little trendy shoes, so I know it's not like she just stepped off the covered wagon yesterday.

Anyone who spends their days shopping at the Galleria cannot claim to be so out of touch with reality that they didn't know that it wasn't couth to refer to someone as barren.

Although spending my days shopping at the Galleria would probably suck out some of my brain cells, too, so I guess there could be a little truth to that.

Dude, they don't even have a Birkenstock store there. I think that in itself demands a prompt call to the mayor of Dallas.

Anyway, maybe it was kosher to call someone barren a hundred years ago, but this is, like, nearly 2010, and it is sooooooooo not cool.

What do you say to that? Let's think of the possibilities?

Well, actually, no, my husband's sperm IS capable of doing a little hula with my eggs, but we chose to raise a child born from someone else's eggs and sperm.

Should I give a fair warning to all the trendy teens today and say, "Well, actually, my husband wore too many tight jeans in the 80's and God is punishing me for spending my entire 5th grade year kissing pictures of Tommy Howell on my wall."

Maybe I could be upfront and say, "Why yes. I'm barren like a wild piece of land and am just waiting for some cowboy to come till me and plant his seed."

I could look disgusted, lean forward and loudly whisper, "Do you know what you have to do to have one of these?" (And then point to the kids) "Eeeeeew, yuck!" And then stick out my tongue and shudder.

But, nope. Because I am super refined and sophisticated, I just smiled and said, "No, I'm not. God called us to adopt and I'm sooooo glad we listened."

And then I turned my non-barren self around and wheeled away with the fruits of my labor.

And then quietly counted up how much good could've been done with the amount of money she spent on her purse... because, you know, I'm terribly annoying and not the least bit OCD like that.

ETA: I hope I haven't offended anyone who has a Coach purse. However, if I did and you feel compelled to donate your bag to someone in need, particulary the New Large Leather Brooke in Eggplant or the large Maggie in Cinnamon then I know of a lovely lady in East Texas who would like to send you her mailing address ASAP. *cough*me*cough**cough*