stop talking. now. NOW.

There's one tiny Mexican restaurant in our tiny little town. Not Athens, obviously-- there are at least 100 Mexican restaurants in Athens, thank God, but in the little town where our house actually is...there's one. Therefore we eat there at least once a week. I won't disclose what the max number of times we've visited it in a week is...that would be embarrassing (but less so if you think of it from the perspective that I'm just trying to support small local businesses...). Anyway, for the past several years, we spend every Tuesday evening there with Matt's family. Taco Tuesday is one of my favorite parts of the week.

Last night our crowd was slim-- just Matt, his dad, and me. Matt's sister Amy is due to give birth to our newest niece any minute now (or, technically...two days ago...) and so Matt's mom is up in NC with her. We're friends with the family that owns the restaurant (obviously, since we're probably the main reason they're still in business) and the waitress, so it was normal for them to inquire about where Matt's mom was when they noticed her absence. We told them about the impending arrival of our niece, which soon turned into a short, sweet discussion about babies in general and how cute and sweet they are. Nothing wrong with that.

But then.

I'm sorry, it's taking me a minute to figure out how to even tell this story.

Please recall who is sitting at our table. Me, Matt, and my father-in-law.

We're friendly with the workers there, but in a normal-small-town-restaurant-owners/workers-frequent-diner way. Like, we chat once or twice a week while ordering dinner and refilling beverages. We don't talk on the phone or invite each other over to our houses. We're not roommates or cousins. We're not even Facebook friends.

So I'm having a hard time figuring out how our conversation so quickly turned wrong.

Here was the progression. Pretend this is a fancy flowchart.

Mom isn't here because Amy's having a baby-->Babies! Yay! Yes, it's a girl. Yay, girls are great!-->Our waitress can't believe how quickly babies grow up. Her youngest is already 13 months!-->All three of our waitress's babies were conceived while she was on birth control. She is the most fertile person ever!-->Yep, the first one was the shot, the second one was an IUD, and the last one was the arm implant thing. But after the last one she had surgery so now there REALLY SHOULD NOT BE ANY MORE!!-->But still, there's a chance that she's pregnant, maybe.

If you ever see me making this face while you're telling a story, there's a 100% chance you should stop telling your story. 

Yes. I'm sure that Matt and his dad were SUPER pumped to find out all of that about our friendly waitress!

I mean, infertility issues and over-sensitivity aside...isn't that pretty much ALWAYS INAPPROPRIATE UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES (to share with strangers...not like, your doctor or your best friend)??

I was slightly tempted to respond with the tales of the 71 cycles that Matt and I have tried and failed to get pregnant, or the variety of drugs, surgeries, and specialists that haven't worked for us. Or maybe shown her pictures of the baby that we thought would be ours but wasn't. Or maybe just faked a stroke and had someone call me an ambulance to get me out of there.

But I didn't. I just made variations on that face and ate my taco really fast.

I don't know if any of yall are waiters, but here's a valuable tip if you are. Maybe don't share that stuff with random patrons.

To be honest, it didn't really upset me all that much. I think I was so busy being amazed and awed by the insane inappropriateness of the whole thing that it shielded me from being hurt. And now I'm telling yall and we can all have a big laugh at it, so perhaps the experience was valuable after all. 

But still. Just...no. Stop.