How to piss off a pregnant woman

If you live far away, ask her if she's had the baby.

If you see her in person, ask her when she's due, then when you hear she's due imminently (or is past due), say anything at all other than "due dates are totally made up and don't mean anything."

Based on my limited experience, pregnant women love to know due dates right up until they get close, then there's far too much pressure to have that baby on or near that date, despite the fact that the date is, truly, bogus.

We realize this more and more every day. Sure, doctors and midwives will tell you the date is made up, but then if you're late, they start freaking out.

What is a due date? I know more about this than I perhaps should. When you find out you're pregnant, you go to the doctor or midwife. They ask you when your last period was. Then they turn a little wheel and determine, based on that wheel, what your due date is. When you go for your first ultrasound, they can theoretically measure the baby and more precisely determine the date.

But that's all bunk. The first process has a bunch of weak spots. It requires knowing the date of the last period, knowing the length of your cycle (which varies from woman to woman, something I certainly didn't know), and relying on a wheel which is based on the premise of rigid consistency in a universe built on chance and chaos.

The second process requires an accurate measurement, a compliant fetus, and a growth rate that is consistent for every baby.

Tonight we had frozen pizza for dinner. The box said to cook the pizza at 400 degrees for 18-21 minutes, but to watch it closely, because ovens vary. The pizza is created by machines to be cooked in a machine, and even then they don't know how long it takes. Why should anyone know what day a baby should be born?