Assault by Baby
“Omg! This lady behind me in line at Starbucks just hit me with her baby!” I text my friend. This is one of those you’re-so-not-going-to-believe-this messages. Such things are urgent, ephemeral, and often require an ignoring of the rules, such as signs that read We will gladly take your order when you are finished with your phone call with the picture of the only available picture of a cell phone in the click art program, the archaic flip phone inside a circle with a red diagonal line through it, indicating something serious like contraband.
If she’s done it once, she’s done it four more times by the time I get a reply: “what? like wielding her baby like a baseball bat and hitting you with it?”
“No, but that’s damned funny too. This baby she’s assaulting me with hasn’t even been born yet. She’s pregnant.” I hit send then continue with a new message. “Obviously her depth perception is off. I mean, I know it’s a hard load to bear and she probably can’t even see her feet she’s so big, but surely she can see me?! I’m waitin for my latte and she just.keeps.bumping.me with her damn baby!” Send. “I’m gettin pissed! I’m gonna slap her!”
“Let me get this straight. u are pissed at a fetus?”
“Lofl. Well, sorta. I mean, it’s not the kid’s fault its mother needs a decaf latte so bad she’s willing to knock patrons out to get it.”
“U sure she’s gettin decaf?”
“Well, no. Should I ask her??”
“Eff that! She’ll probably go into labor and you’ll never get your latte. And you obviously need one if you are contemplating kicking a pregnant woman’s ass.”
“Good point. Ttyl.”
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working on her first (several) poetry collections and an autobiographical work on raising a child with Autism. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspiration, Deadsnakes, The Rainbow Rose and other online and print journals and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and Bluestem.
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