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It has always been a pet peeve of mine when people ask rude questions, but then I’m the one who ends up feeling awkward as I try to figure out how to respond to them without making them feel uncomfortable. For example, the person on the elevator who recently asked if I was pregnant. Why is this EVER considered OK to ask anyone? Number 1, even if I were (which I’m not), it’s none of your business when I’m due. Number 2, if you don’t know me personally, why does it matter if I’m pregnant? And number 3, if you have to ask and you truly don’t know, you shouldn’t say anything. I wanted to say, “No, my mom died a few months ago and I’ve been eating a lot of carbs,” but I felt like that would be impolite.

One time a certain person who will remain nameless except to say she’s my person was asked this question in her early 20s, and she wasn’t pregnant. But she said, “Yes, I am.” And the asker responded, “when are you due?” To which she responded, “Next month.” Not content to stop the conversation here, the asker goes on, “Oh, but you’re so small to be 8 months!” My person ended things abruptly when she said, “Well, that’s probably because I smoked crack for the first 3 months.” Well-played ma’am, well-played.

I was at Christina Yang’s house recently and she was showing me some Disney Loot from a pre-coronavirus vacation, and one of them was the coolest thing. A light saber. I’ve never seen a single Star Wars movie, but swords of any kind are awesome. They are especially awesome if they light up, and make fun noises. Looking at this light saber, I had an epiphany. I looked at Christina Yang and said, “Don’t you think it would be awesome if we could all carry things like this in our purses? And then if someone came too close, or just wouldn’t shut up, or did anything else that we just didn’t feel like dealing with, we could whip it out? And it would make that cool purring noise, and then if you turn it it’s like ‘waahhhh’.” 

I’m not kidding. Doesn’t that sound more fun than looking at someone like they’re beneath you and finding a polite way to tell them they’re wrong?  I think things would be way more entertaining that way. 

And then, because I think in circles, I start to wonder why people ever stopped carrying swords in the first place. Like one day they just up and decided, “Well, I think I’ll leave this at home today.” I love a good sword fight. Some of my favorite movies of all time have sword fights. The Princess Bride, for one. The fight between Westley and Inigo Montoya is classic. All the choreography with the clever dialogue? It’s perfect. And then of course the sword fight later between Inigo Montoya and the 6-fingered man.  If Inigo had said, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die,” with a gun in his hand, it wouldn’t have been nearly as entertaining. And he wouldn’t have been able to fight for as long, building steam and growing stronger until he could win. The sword was crucial.

Or in my recently discovered (late to the party I know) favorite Monty Python movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where King Arthur is fighting with the Black Knight and chops off his arm, and then the Black Knight says, “Tis just a scratch!” And then a few minutes later, he cuts off the other arm, and the Black Knight says, “Tis but a flesh wound!” You couldn’t have a scene like that without a sword.

And then there are other movies where swords aren’t included but I think they should have been. Like what if in the Twilight movies instead of all that teeth-baring and growling and wrestling they had swords? Don’t you think that would’ve been more entertaining? Almost any love triangle movie can be made better with sword fighting I think, now that I’m considering it. Who wants some lame love triangle where you don’t have someone with a sword defending your honor? Instead we are left with sad songs and knowing smiles. So disappointing. Other movies that could benefit from sword fights: Jurassic Park, Bad Boys for Life, and anything with Jason Strahan.

Even poetry is better. One of my favorite quotes is by Atticus, an Instagram poet, who wrote, “She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword.” It just has this air of power about it, right? Without the sword, the quote would lose that edge that sounds so empowering to women. 

Take home message is this— don’t be a jerk. If you don’t know if they’re pregnant, probably you shouldn’t ask. The same thing applies for other obnoxious questions like, “When are you going to have a baby?”, “Did you know your jeans have holes in them?”, “When are you two going to get married?”, “Why are you still single?”, “ Are you PMS-ing?”, “Are you really going to eat that?”, “Do you think you have an iced-coffee addiction?”, and anything else that someone didn’t voluntarily choose to tell you. Just know, if you ask me these questions, I might smile at you and say something polite, but in my head, I have pulled the light saber. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,