(OK, softer side coming up so if you don't want to read it go directly to paragraph 8. Do not read paragraph 7.)
She was lovely. Absolutely bathed in pregnancy. Glowing, happy and by the look of it about a week before she was to pop. I'm sure you get the picture.
And, like all good mums-to-be in this summer heat, she was keeping hydrated with a water bottle.
Obviously, out our way there is something in the water.
I was smiling to myself, enjoying the happy vision and remembering my own pregnancy, er, I mean my wife's, when a lady next to me touched my arm and jolted me from my daydream.
"I think that's you," she said politely.
"Sixty-four? Number 64?" the increasingly exasperated Takeaway Terror was calling from behind the counter.
"I'm 64," I blurted without thinking, just waiting for some dork to respond with "you don't look a day over 60". You know what I mean. We all know someone like that.
Anyway.
Sheepishly I made my way through the crowd with my important thumbprint-size piece of paper with the corresponding number on it and solemnly handed it over.
The goods exchanged, I headed back outside - and bang!. Pregnant woman No2. Basically, a repeat performance. Stunning. Glowing. Smiling. Water bottle.
I drove home amazed at the wonderment of life and the pleasant memories of pregnancies gone by, er, my wife's pregnancies, not mine.
Then I noticed the car needed petrol and the upcoming gas station was empty. It would take two seconds so I pulled in.
Bang! Pregnant woman No3. (In case you were wondering, in this instance "Bang" doesn't mean I crashed into her. It means there she was.)
Same as before. Just glowing. But no water bottle.
We went inside at the same time and she paid for her petrol. And a bottle of water.
By now I was starting to think there must have been some pregnant women's booze-up out at the lake or something. That or some higher being was trying to tell me something. Could it be we were about to have a pregnancy in our family?
I hurried back out to the forecourt, almost laughing as pregnant woman No4 got out of her car right next to me.
The drive home was a blur as various thoughts went through my mind. Panic. Worry. Delight. Excitement. All came and went in equal portions.
Eventually I burst through the front door and relayed the details of my four encounters to Mrs P.
She listened intently from her chair in the garden as I sorted the food. Then she lowered the boom. "I hear the patter of tiny feet," she said.
My response was cut off somewhere between the third and fourth letters of an expletive as I realised she meant George, the dog, who was doing his best to contain his excitement at his master's return and was scampering across the wooden deck towards me.
Mrs P laughed at her joke. It was all just coincidence, she said. Nothing to worry about. Anyway, what was I doing in the kitchen? Was I coming outside to eat?
I was. But just then I was standing stunned over the sink.
She'd just asked me for a glass of water.
I think I was going through what they call a pregnant pause.
Kevin Page has been a journalist for 34 years. He hasn't made enough money to retire after writing about serious topics for years so he's giving humour a shot instead.
