Be forewarned: This column might be interrupted at any time. But don't be alarmed. It just means that I had to hightail it to Arctic Circle for an emergency raspberry-shake-and-medium-french-fry-with-extra-fry-sauce run.
Another warning: DO be alarmed if you're the slowpoke driver in front of my wife and me as we make one of these mad dashes to the drive-thru. My SUV has 4-wheel-drive, and my pregnant wife, Heather, will make me use it to climb over you if you block our path the next time she experiences those awful, sharp pre-labor-pains, otherwise known as cravings.
If nothing else during this, our first pregnancy, I've learned what the simple phrase "I'm hungry" really means in pregnantese: "FEED ME NOW OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!!!"
And that's just the baby speaking.
So, the honking and hollering are not personal. It's just that the life of my lovely wife and my unborn baby boy — who will one day undoubtedly become a Hall-of-Fame baseball player or U.S. president, if not both — apparently are on the line.
Unfortunately, Heather has banned me from using her "I'm eating for two" stomach-stuffing excuse. She won't even buy my argument that I'm eating for myself and for my inner skinny writer.
Pregnant women have all the luck.
Anyway, it used to be pretty easy to tell the difference between my wife and me.
I was the one who would stuff my face like crazy at all times of the day. I was the one with the belly that seemed to grow larger by the swallow, making it harder to fit into my clothes and to see and/or touch my toes. I was also the one whose hormones were blamed for making me act strangely.
She was just the cute one with the girl's name.
Now she's all of that — and also the one who tries on outfit after outfit and dejectedly says what I've been saying since the second grade: "I don't look pregnant, I just look fat!"
(She doesn't look fat, by the way, just adorably pregnant.)
Her emotions and moods have changed right along with her appetite, which seems perfectly understandable, considering someone she's never even met keeps kicking her. Then again, perhaps I've just become more insensitive. After all, I didn't even get teary-eyed at Wal-Mart after thinking about how those adorable cartoon giraffes in the baby section would make the cutest decorations for our kid's room. (I did get teary-eyed, however, at the checkstand.)
The other big difference: Our boy apparently is using her bladder as a waterbed, forcing her to make more urgent pit stops than an Indy 500 race-car driver or a beer-guzzling guy at a sporting event.
Oh, excuse me. . . . (Stomping, car-screeching, silence, sudden slurping.)
. . . OK, I'm back from the fast-food frenzy, and from reassuring my wife that, yes indeed, clothing manufacturers are making sizes smaller than they used to and that somebody must have done the laundry with hot water instead of cold.
Telling the truth during pregnancy, I've also learned, can be as dangerous as impeding the feeding. Truth be told, though, I can't wait to be a dad and to watch my wife be a mom.
Oh yeah, and to answer the three questions I now know women are wondering: Heather's doing fine aside from dealing with fatigue, occasional midsection discomfort and a sarcastic husband; our little Butterball's timer is supposed to pop up the day before Thanksgiving; and, yes, we've picked out a name. (Mr. President will do.)
And don't be surprised if his first words upon arrival are: "When's dinner!?"
After all, like father, like mother for now, like son.
Oops, pardon me again. . . .
Jody Genessy's weight-loss column runs the first Friday of every month unless he's en route to Arctic Circle for an eating emergency. E-mail: jody@desnews.com