The Way to Clear a Room

Last week my bonus sister gave birth to her first child. The whole family was so excited when she went into labor; I kept them up to date on what was going on. At noon I told them her water broke; at 2 I said, she's three centimeters dilated, and at 6 she was up to 5.  At 10:10 I announced she was pushing and then Everett was here!!!  There was never any discussion about what any of that meant, so I assumed they all understood--well so much for assuming....

This weekend three of the four were away where a good friend also is close to delivering.  SK was updating me on how our friend was doing.  "She's 3 cm's and ______________ kept saying, maybe we should go."  I asked, "was she having contractions?"  Christopher, "what's that?"  That should have been my first clue that this conversation was not going to end well.  "Contractions," I began to explain, "is the pain you have as you're dilating."  Christopher, "So how do they measure that anyway?  What kind of ruler do they use?"

Without thinking, again big mistake, I hold up two finger and say, "they use fingers to measure."  And then the room cleared.