Chester the Molester (of the belly variety)

Throughout each of my pregnancies, strangers have been pretty respectful of the old belly. My friend C tells me of many stories of grabby hands on the Muni to rub her belly like Aladdin’s lamp, and I considered myself pretty lucky. And then my belly got molested this week. .

When I got to my BART station, the escalator was broken, which meant that I had to take the elevator and by the time I hit the parking structure, most of my fellow commuters had already reached their cars and the place was pretty empty. There was a man walking in front of me, and I had this weird feeling so I slowed down to let him get further ahead of me. Then he turned around.

“Can you tell me how to get to Union Square?”

“In San Francisco?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Well, you have to go back to the trains.” What are you doing walking around a parking lot if you are looking to go to San Francisco??

So I lead him back to the breezeway that leads to the trains, point out the BART train, and tell him he has to go back inside and take the BART to Powell Street station. Good deed done for the day, goodbye Charlie, right?

Instead of walking back into the station, he reaches out and puts his hand on my belly. AND DOESN’T REMOVE IT. And so begins the most awkward 5 minutes of 2010.

How’s the pregnancy going? Fine. Do you know what you’re having? Nope. Is this your first? Nope. How far along? 8 months? My ex is 8 months pregnant with twins. Do you know the position of the baby? Um, NO. Does the baby kick? Of course! Can you make it kick? NO (getthefuckawayfrommeyoufreak)

I’m answering for the most part, but increasingly freaking out, trying to figure out how to extract myself from this situation without antagonizing this stranger with crazy eyes.

And then he puts his other hand on my belly. THIS STRANGE MAN IS CUPPING MY BELLY. I flinch backward, and this seems to break the moment, THANK GOD.

“Oh! I’m sorry, is that. . .”

“Um, yeah, it’s kind of weird.”

He takes the one hand off, but the other hand remains. I have to say I can’t really remember how it ended, but I think he got the message and walked away. I picked up my cell phone like I just remembered I need to call something. I waited until he looked far enough out of sight, and booked it to my car. And by “booked it,” I mean waddled as quickly as possible while trying to get a hold of Josh so he could talk to me until I got safely to the car.

The upshot is that I was tired and in a crappy mood while on BART, but the adrenaline and relief coursing through my body turned my whole outlook around. However, if I had my druthers, I’d take a nice glass of Zinfandel over a belly molester any day.