crusty deliciousness

i was hanging out with a good friend the other day, having dinner & eating all the cookies in the house. because, well, because she's pregnant & is free to eat to her little heart's content & not to be outdone, i felt the need to consume as many as she did, you know, so she wouldn't feel embarrassed or lonely in her snickerdoodle frenzy. and while we were busy eating a whole pan of ziti and about 15 cookies, i remembered a story back from my own days as the knocked up chick.

chris had taken me to macaroni grill to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary and we'd taken full advantage of the unlimited bread they bring to the table. i'm not sure how many crusty little loaves we consumed, but i'm sure it was more than the average amount for a table of two.

we had a long, leisurely dinner of happy chatting & relaxed laughs, enjoying some of the few moments left before we would be carting around a baby and piles of equipment of every kind. just us & my purse and large quantities of food.

as the meal finished up i realized that i wasn't just full, i was pregnant full; meaning, baby was in the place where all the food needed to land & i found myself needing to lean waaaayy backwards to try to accommodate everything that was jockeying for position in my gut region. i felt my stomach gurgle - right behind my left breast. baby was kicking & rolling & making things decidedly more uncomfortable, but in all fairness, she was probably just trying to find a position where 4 loaves of bread & a pound of pasta and cream sauce weren't sitting directly on her head.

chris helped to haul my huge ass up off the bench i was wedged onto and i very slowly wound my way through the restaurant toward the door. i was wearing a long green dress & i was leaning back with one hand on my lower back & one hand flapping around out front, trying to keep my balance. i noticed that i got a whole lot of stares from our fellow diners and it was going beyond the usual, "whoa, that's a lot of belly" kind of looks. it was like i'd reached the point of shock & awe and i wasn't sure that i liked it. by the time we reached the exit, i'm sure i had a snarky scowl on my face because i was very uncomfortable and i was tired of getting the circus freak eye from so many different people.

as we were walking to the car, i mentioned to chris about the rude staring & that's when i looked down at my giant stomach and realized - my entire belly was covered in a massive quantity of bread crumbs. like imagine this stomach

with this entire loaf of bread broken up into little bits of crusty deliciousness and strewn willy nilly around my grotesquely swollen flesh shelf.

i finally understood why i was getting so many peculiar stares from the other folks in the restaurant. so i did the only sensible thing at that point & proceeded to eat all those yummy little bits from my dress because it would be a shame to let such culinary beauty go to waste.