The Shower, C.Effinger

The Shower
By Christy Effinger

I didn’t mean to get drunk at the baby shower, honest, but I couldn’t find a shot glass in Haley’s kitchen, so I had to pour the rum straight into my punch. What kind of housewife doesn’t keep a shot glass in her kitchen? I have five or six squirreled away in mine. While the other women played some game that involved sniffing at melted candy bars in diapers—no, really—I downed two glasses of spiked punch. Then, while they played a game trying to guess the width of Melissa’s girth, I downed two more. I wandered into the living room just as the women passed around the ultrasound picture. When the picture came to me, I held it up to the light. “It’s precious,” I cried, “just precious,” and then someone told me I was holding it upside down.