37 weeks and 3 days pregnant. At this point, the additional days feel important. In theory Baby Bop could decide to emerge anytime in the next four weeks. I can’t think of any other momentous life event that requires such a wide window of availability.

I head to the grocery store to stock up for the end of the world. I understand that we can order groceries online, but that’s expensive and I find descriptions like 6 ounces of blueberries versus 18 ounces of blueberries unhelpful. Both photos look the same, but then my blueberries arrive and I realize I just paid four dollars for the tiniest package of blueberries I’ve ever seen.

I go to Market Basket. I check out twice. First I buy enough dry goods for the rest of the summer. I take those to the car. I head back in and start on the food. The only good thing about shopping for Armageddon is that no one else is. I’m the only crazy person with 12 chicken breasts sliding off of my stack of 6 boxes of Cheerios, stacked on 8 cans of baked beans.

Yes I live in a tiny living space and yes I’m not sure where all this is going to go, but for whatever reason my pregnant brain needs to do this. A random stranger remarks,

“Looks like you’re pregnant.”

Is he referring to my belly or my cart?

I push on. The store is crowded, but there’s a general give and take between people as we get in each other’s way, except for people pushing carts while talking on cell phones. They’re dangerous. One young guy is chatting away on his phone and on a collision course for my Jenga game of groceries.

An older guy runs up behind him shouting,

“Hey! Hey! Hey!”

The guy on the phone turns with an eye roll. The older guy says,

“That’s my cart!”

The young guy glances down, acknowledges that yes the cart he’s pushing with 3 items in it is not his and walks 10 feet away to a cart that’s half full. He offers,

“I thought the cart felt light.”

Hours later I’m finished. Checkout turns my grocery cart into two grocery carts. I make a valiant effort to push both. An employee rushes to help me. He even insists on loading my car. The pregnant belly has its pros and cons.

I get home much later than I anticipated, with only enough time to make our condo look like a grocery store before Captain and I have to leave for our birth class. We return at 10pm. I look at the food everywhere. I go to bed. I’m feeling concerned. I tell Captain,

“I’m having a lot of feelings.”

“Like what?”

“Baby Bop could come at anytime. She could come tomorrow before I have a chance to put all the groceries away.”

Captain reassures me,

“I can put groceries away.”

Someday I can just sit in the cart.