A pregnant friend invited me to go visit a pregnant neighbor with her. Having never been pregnant, I contributed nothing to the hour of ensuing conversation except obligatory nods, smiles, and "I see"s. I was thinking about leaves (like on trees) when suddenly Neighbor mentioned how odd she thought it was that she and baby had been tested for strep.
"I thought that was a throat disease!" she said with slightly widened eyes. "Weird, right?"
I chimed in before my brain-to-mouth filter had received adequate warning to engage, and contributed what little I knew about strep. I actually found it fascinating that strep was a chain-like form of bacteria and that, though strep throat was one of the more common manifestations of streptococcus, the bacteria could, in fact, cause a number of other problems. I found it, therefore, no surprise that Neighbor had been tested for strep, though it was news to me that such was the standard operating procedure. But, I speculated, strep could very likely cause complications with a fetus, and wasn't strep related to meningitis? I seemed to remember having read that somewhere. Yes, now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure streptococcus could cause meningitis. And pink-eye. That's another one that people don't often realize is a streptococcus family of infection. Of course, pink-eye, as far as I'm aware, has never killed anyone. But, oh! Wasn't there a necrotizing form of strep? I thought I remembered there being a branch of the family that ate fle—
Neighbor was staring at me with mouth agape.
What in heaven's name was I talking about? Was I just about to tell a woman—a pregnant woman I just met—about flesh-eating bacteria? These two women have been talking for an hour and twenty minutes and have both managed to make it that long without entering a dissertation on the many branches of streptococcus. Can I really not contribute something remotely normal to such an established conversation?
I should have said something about leaves.
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