PEST FEST Day 5: The Hilarious Sitcom

Shauna is ready to pop. She’s due on Monday, but I’m betting that baby is coming Friday. She’s been taking it all in stride, actually, but I think I am starting to freak out a little. We spend a lot of the day apart (her doing her thing, me doing mine) and every time the phone rings I immediately think it is her, telling me to get my ass home to driver her to the hospital because the kid’s head is poking out from between her vag.

Her husband Richard, who has been on an important biz trip in SE Asia, arrives tomorrow (thank God), but I feel like if called upon I am ready to help out. I've got her list of important numbers in my phone, know the quickest route to the hospital, know which questions to ask, read that section of What To Expect When You're Expecting geared towards the husband/partner/gay friend next-on-the-list-in-case-nobody-else-is-around.

Shauna and I have been really close friends for 12 years. She’s really like a sister I never had. There isn’t a whole lot of taboo subjects between us – we’ve seen each other naked (there has been some streaking and skinny dipping in our past); went with each other to get tattoos (ed. note: writing that sounds very strange); have discussed every possible subject with each other; performed any number of super classy body tricks/functions in each other’s presence (this may be more me than her, actually).

Anyway, as close as we’ve been we’ve never lived under the same roof, let alone when she’s been pregnant. Earlier I said that our temporary living arrangement would make a good Bravo reality show, but now I’m thinking it is better served as a quirky comedy on Fox. The part of Shauna would be played by someone like Kate Winslet (Shauna's a proper British gal from the Lake District, after all).

I’d be played by Paul Rudd or Bradley Cooper, both of whom resemble me (OK, perhaps not even remotely close but shut up and just give me this one, alright?) and could accurately portray the unusual, slightly troubled yet funny and sexy nuances of my winning personality (again, just shut up already).

Imagine Kate delivering these lines (actually said to me by Shauna over the last 5 days):

• “Are you actually eating a spoonful of peanut butter?? Right from the jar?”
• “You look different in this photo… quite handsome, actually.”
• “I noticed that you ate that entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s last night.”
• “Is that smell coming from your feet??”
• “You are a negative influence on me. I’m telling everyone that Burgerville was your idea.”

And then there’d be Paul or Bradley, responding to Kate with just a shrug of the shoulders and a look of helplessness towards the camera, and then the audience would burst into laughter and applause. It will be awesome 5000. *

I can only imagine how much better the conversations are going to get once the baby arrives. Stay tuned.

* The show would probably go off the air after 3 episodes and be re-tooled with a talking dog, RuPaul as the neighbor, and me totally out of the picture. But anyway.