The Time When a Deaf Ear Was Turned To My Gory Demise

    Bejeweled and dressed in stylish winter whites draped in fur, a lovely young woman in her late twenties arrived at a social gathering I attended recently. I had heard about what a pleasant person she was and looked forward to a conversation. She pushed a top-o-the-line stroller through the door and all the people swarmed.  These were the babies, adorable twins, we had heard about. Knowing the mother-bear-like protective nature of the new mom I sympathized with her as the people gathered 'round.  I had no visceral need to bundle the wee bairns to my bosom.   After all, I could be a stranger, a drifter, a party crasher for all she grasped .  These were infants and who knew what type of coccus, bacillus, spirillum or yet undefined pathogen may be crammed into the microscopic folds of my skin.   Plus I am not one of those who finds extreme pleasure in holding babies that aren't related to me.  Give me a mouthy teenager or a eager tweener and I can be their very own "Cedric the Entertainer".
     I mosied on over to the scene after the babies had been gathered up by friends and introduced myself quickly.
     "Congratulations." I added. "Your babies are lovely."  She looked up after I said who I was and how I was related to the hosts and nodded in perfunctory courtesy, smile gone.  I noticed her natural preoccupation for the locality of her offspring, smiled and walked away.  New mom.  I remember the feeling. How sweet.
     I passed some time getting to know another woman at the gathering.  She and I chatted it up and exchanged cocktail recipes and shared a bucket-sized basket of french fries (guilt cut in half!).  We sat down and next to me was la mama couture.
    I caught her attention. "It's really great to have twins.  One boy and one girl.  Wow!  How lucky is that?"  My scientific mind had already worked out the details.  I was well aware of the direct mathematical correlation between Hollywood/Sports/Money and twins.  One could graph it and find a constant slope.
     I continued with, "This is my friend....." but I was cut off in the middle of introducing my friend, by the turn of New Mama's head as it rotated to listen to someone else addressing her.   As New Mom's attention turned back in my general direction I continued on a different subject, forgetting to finish my friend's introduction.  I have something in common with the mom and then we would talk and enjoy each others company.
     "I have a boy and a girl, too.  One's 11 and the other is going to be 16 soon....." This time, the girl's whole attention, in fact her whole body, pivoted away from my voice midsentence and toward her friends as she asked them a question.  This twenty-something baby mama a la mode was ignoring me.  My friend was tittering by now, watching the comedy unfold before her.
     I pooh-poohed the brush-off and continued speaking in a conversational tone to the woman's back, "yes I was at a party recently and my head fell off.  It literally fell off and there was blood splashing out.  Nasty business to have your head fall off.  Especially the reattachment phase."
     There was no denying it.  She had relegated me to  fète filler: a phrase I coined for people at a party who one believes just take up space.  I knew my hosts, very good friends for a few years now, had no sense of this happening and was not saddened nor distressed.  In fact, I surged with a current similar to the sparks discharged into the air by the Tesla Coil.  And when this happens, I write.
     This part of the evening was coming to a close.  As my adversary strapped snoring baby bundles into the Bugaboo stroller, then bottles and burpies into a Louis Vuitton diaper bag I strolled over to where she stood alone for my final bunt.  I looked into the carriage and said, "So when you get home will the babies continue to sleep like this through the night for you?"  She shook her head a bit, still stuffing the bag.  Did I see fatigue gather into concealer/foundation-hidden wrinkles at the corner of her eyes? Was I starting to feel sorry for her a bit in the pit of my stomach? Maybe, but then she perked right up when her friends came to say goodbye.
    I removed my body, head reattached (nasty business re-affixing a head to the neck it is) and gathered with my friends thinking about how fun life is.