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Had a primo seat on the bus today, and was enjoying my space and my sports page when I noticed an overweight woman get on. She scanned the bus, saw that there were no seats left, and picked me to stand over and sigh exaggeratedly at. Great.

Normally, I give up my seat as often as the next guy, but I was so comfortable and I had a heavy backpack and was wearing tight shoes. Why am I always the one who gives up his seat? Let that dude over there with the big hair give up his. And something about the woman’s intrinsic grumpiness rubbed me the wrong way—screw her for making me feel guilty—so I ignored her and turned up my iPod…

Sarah didn’t get the chicken pox. (Exhale . . .) Of course she didn’t. She’s a genetic freak, thank God. It was a huge relief; I’ve always been a worrier. Everyone is quick to tell me that I don’t know what true worrying is because I’ve never faced any real adversity, that I’m nothing but a minor leaguer who has never seen a big-league curveball. To which I say, some of the pitchers in Triple-A make it to the majors, too.

OK. No more baseball metaphors.

The morning after our shopping spree in Indiana, lo and behold, Sarah woke up with a belly…

I had one goal for Sunday: to spend as much time as possible watching football. My plan was to invite Kenn and Drue over and eat cheap pizza in the basement and fart and complain about the Bears offense until we fell asleep. Then we’d rouse ourselves in time for the late game on ESPN. It would be heaven. Instead, I found myself in an outlet mall in Indiana, maternity shopping.

Apparently I had promised a long time ago, and Sarah had it on her calendar for weeks. I don’t have a calendar, so I had no recourse. My only plan was make the experience so miserable for both of us that she would never make me do it again…

What do you do when you hear a baby cry?

My first instinct is to run in the other direction. I don’t want to have anything to do with it; the whole thing is the family’s business, not mine. But when my child-to-be starts screaming in four months, I honestly don’t know how I’ll react. I certainly hope I don’t run away. This is a hot-button issue, I’m told, this crying thing, especially as it pertains to sleep. It tends to polarize new parents, most of which fall into one of three camps…

More bad news. At synagogue, I saw Nate, an old guy whose daughter’s pregnancy was two weeks ahead of Sarah’s. His daughter miscarried. Her cervix had basically opened up and the fetus came out early, which happens in about one percent of all pregnancies. I practically burst into tears right there in the sanctuary. Nate, who’d been giddy at the prospect of being grandfather just a month ago, now looked miserable. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could say to him.

That night, I held Sarah tight. But not too tight…

Our cushy little pregnant world, where the deepest problem to this point involved sharing the bathroom, exploded today. The phone rang at my desk, and it was Sarah, who had that amused-but-troubled ring to her voice. “You’ll never guess what happened. I just got exposed to chicken pox.”

The inside of my stomach dropped so fast, I checked my shoes for my lower intestines. Sarah is always showing off about how she’s never had chicken pox…