The Zen Master

It’s safe to say Bologna has always been a little… on edge. I mean, you won’t get knifed if you make a sudden movement around her but if she catches you improperly folding a bed sheet, she might go ballistic and start screaming.

Lots of things serve as irritants to Bologna but that’s just because she is a sensitive soul, unlike your beloved Dangerous K who once ate an M&M from behind her college roommates’ desk even after realizing that that particular candy had not been brought into the room in the 2 years of cohabitation. But it was a brown one and I really like the brown ones because I’m always afraid they’ll be the next to be discontinued after the tan ones so we should enjoy them while we have them. Or maybe the shell had eroded and I was looking at raw chocolate innards. Whatever. It was delicious. Anyway.

Now that Bologna is pregnant (read: engorged with hormones) she is slightly more sensitive than usual (read: a fucking whack job that WILL knife you). So her husband T and I have formed a sort of unspoken 24-hour patrol – he takes the in-person night shift from 6pm to 7am and I have the day shift via AIM from 8am to 5pm. We spend her unsupervised travel time in between our shifts praying for the safety of other commuters.

So this afternoon I was not surprised to hear her ask for a dose of Zen to sooth an apoplectic fit induced by a lazy secretary in her office. In my most calming typing tone, I talked my sister down from a ledge. Deep breath in…. and release that big guy back into the wild. Very good everyone! I’m seeing progress here.

But if there is one thing I am learning from this whole fetus-incubating-sister thing, it is that logic means nothing to the impregnated masses. There are no rules. This IS ‘Nam, Smokey. And if Bologna says turkey bacon on a bagel she MEANS turkey bacon on a bagel and GOD HELP YOU IF YOU BRING HER A PLAIN ONE (Hi T! Remember that time you brought her a plain bagel? That was fun). Meltdowns will ensue. Since things like reason can no longer be counted on to pacify Bologna, I find the best option is distraction. My best method of distraction is apparently humor. So when my conversational tactics failed today, I turned to whale noises which top scientists say are very soothing in their OOOOoooooOOO’y kind of way. I detected giggling (I can detect these things through a computer). I pushed on, idly threatening to call her office and sing Enya to her if she didn’t immediately get happy.

Don’t threaten pregnant ladies. Just don’t. Because they will in turn refuse to become happy until you call them and sing Enya. They won’t be swayed by excuses like “I forgot my cell phone at home” and “I can’t sing to you from my cubicle – everyone in the office will hear me” or even “But I’m the new girl and I still have them mostly convinced that I’m normal!” Why not? Because TURKEY BACON NOW.

So I peaked over my cubicle wall, ascertained that the desks nearest to me were empty, dialed with shaking hands and as soon as the phone was answered, began softly crooning “storms in Africaaaaaa.” Giggles from the other end. Bologna was appeased. I stopped. Bologna was no longer appeased. I made a thunder/tribal drum noise. Giggling continued. I hissed, “I’m sorry, that is all I have time for” while attempting to contain a guffaw that would surely be heard in the executive offices.

As I was hanging up and wiping the beads of sweat from my forehead, one of my coworkers appeared with a quizzical look on her face. She had been in a conference room around the corner from my desk, easily within earshot. I smiled my best I-am-SO-not-certifiable smile. She asked if I was OK. She’d heard a disturbance and now there appeared to be tears on my face. In order to save my reputation, I gave her the abridged version of this blog and explained that they were tears of laughter, not pain.

But they would have been tears of pain had I not called Bologna and sung Enya in my most humbling and self-mortifying way. Because she would have knifed me. And don’t you forget that.