Trousers, again

On Saturday, N and I went to Naples to shop for clothes. The jeans I found last month at the mercato americano have been holding me over, but they won't for much longer. Like my fellow expat Michellenea, who came clean last Thursday, I am just over three months pregnant. I still fit into most of my clothes, and probably will for at least another month, but N and I have so few opportunities to shop that we decided to make good use of some free time and buy some maternity-wear basics.

I was looking forward to shopping for maternity clothes because I thought that my "plus-size" body would pose fewer problems, given that pregnant women tend to be large. (For those of you who haven't read my jeans post, while I am a smallish medium in the United States, I wear taglie comode, literally comfortable sizes, here.) Well, I was mistaken, but before I get into that, I'd like to recount what happened on our way to the Prénatal on Via Roma. A pigeon crapped on me. Ever since seeing a girl crying as her friends picked poo out of her hair in the bathroom of a D.C. restaurant, I've feared finding myself under a crapping bird. I reacted very well, though, better than I ever imagined I would, probably because the poo landed only on my shirt. I'm surprised at how quickly it dried. By the time I found a tissue in my handbag, it was too dry to be wiped off. Fortunately we were only about thirty meters from the shop when it happened, and I figured that I'd just buy a shirt there and change into it before leaving.

Once in the shop, I began to look through the racks of trousers, checking their hems first to make sure they didn't have tapered legs. Most of them did. I wondered to myself, "are these people serious?" I don't think pregnant women should have to hide or even minimize the appearance of their large bellies, but why should they have to wear trousers that will make them seem even larger? I finally found a few pairs that were straight-leg or boot-cut, and tried them on, together with a few blouses, a skirt and a dress. Everything but the trousers fit well. The problem? The same one as before, and honestly, why did I think it would be otherwise? They were too tight in the thighs. Looking at myself in those trousers, I imagined what I would look like months from now, my belly filling out the huge gaping front, and beneath it, my legs looking like a couple of plump sausages. Unacceptable. I looked around the shop again, picking out every pair I could find without tapered legs and in the end I found three that fit my massive legs. I don't like any of them very much, but they'll do.

At the register, when I told the sales clerk to set one of the shirts aside because I'd be wearing it home, N explained, "Because a pigeon pooped on her." I wondered if the huge green and white splotch beneath my left shoulder had already tipped her off. "Porta fortuna!" she exclaimed, as did everyone else who heard the pigeon story that day. Silly me, thinking it was just really unpleasant. I changed into the new shirt and immediately felt strange because its shape made me look much more pregnant than I am. It felt odd to be so publicly pregnant when up until then the only people who knew were the ones I'd told. It was nice, though, to see all the sympathetic faces when, bloated from the pizza I had for lunch and tired after being on my feet for a few hours, I began to walk very slowly and with obvious difficulty.