Friday morning I was minding my own business when out popped my mucous plug. Guys, I don't know how to put it more delicately than that. It is what it is.

I wanted to make sure that it was, in fact, a mucous plug, and not, say, the leaking brain of a reptilian parasite, so I retrieved it with a piece of tissue and set it on the countertop in the bathroom so that I could cross-reference it with a slew of images found on Google. You just go ahead and process that, DUDE WHO REFUSES TO WEAR A CONDOM. Because this was not a scientific experiment I was willing to go alone. No. In fact, I called out to Jon from the bathroom, "Hey, SPERM PROVIDER. OPEN UP A WEB BROWSER."

Yeah. So. My mucous plug. Are you one of the innocent little kittens who has never heard of such a thing? Let me give you the brief explanation I gave to Leta when she got home from school, ran unknowingly into the bathroom to go potty, and came out going WHAT IS THAT THING ON THE COUNTER?! Hoo boy! And you thought blogging about my kid was abusive? I'm not so sure I've done anything as reckless as leaving my mucous plug just lying there in plain sight of a five-year-old. Because one day she's going to be talking to her therapist about the recurring nightmare she's suffered for the last twenty years, the one where a giant slug crawls up through the sink in the bathroom, jumps off the edge of the countertop onto her head and sucks her face off.

So I pulled up Wikipedia, showed her what a uterus is, and explained that what she saw in the bathroom was a collection of mucus that seals the opening of the cervix. And since I'm so close to my due date it's not a big deal that mine sort of fell out. She said it looked like what happens when I blow my nose, and Jon, a writhing mess of nerves who had just combed through hundreds of images of SOMEONE ELSE'S MUCOUS PLUG, goes, "Yeah, her bottom nose!" Haha. Funny one, Sperm Provider! Go crawl into your dark corner and nurse your fragile emotions, because I am about to give birth! TO A HUMAN! OUT OF MY VAGINA!

It must be so sad for men to live their whole lives knowing that they can never say anything that trumps that particular declaration.

When I twittered about this development several people replied to tell me that they had given birth within 24-48 hours of passing their own plugs, and suddenly Armstrong Labor Watch 2009 was on. Except, nothing has happened since then. Not a damn thing, not even a fake contraction. And today four of our siblings have called to ask if we've had the baby yet, and I'm all, you have got to be kidding me. Do you think we'd up and have this kid and not call anyone? YOU WILL KNOW WHEN I GO INTO LABOR. Anyone living west of the Mississippi will hear the screaming.