Friday, February 18, 2011

The Pumping Story

Walking in on a stranger manually pumping milk out of her own breast is pretty disturbing, but when it happens to you at a preschool, it's really a shock.

When I was in my early 20s, I worked as an aide at a daycare. They wanted me to help manage students in their am and pm classes two days a week. I was still in college at the time and so was the person who hired me. Because of conflicts in schedules, we had to do a phone interview instead of actually meeting in person. The lady I apoke to sounded very pleasant. She was working on her Phd at ASU while also coordinating funding for this preschool. The job sounded pretty straight forward, worked with my schedule and would look good on my resume; so I accepted it sight unseen.


My first day, I was about 20 minutes early. I decided that was probably a good thing....but I was wrong.

I stepped into the daycare, looking around at the brightly colored classroom. I was surprised to see a few children already playing with blocks and several more riding tricycles just outside a propped open door. As I smiled and waved at the kids, I looked around and realized there were no adults in this room. I was already confused because according to MaryAnn (the lady who hired me) the daycare didn't even open until 9:00 and right now, it was only 8:20.

Suddenly, I heard a woman's voice yell, "You be sweet! Be sweet! Come on, now! BE SWEET!!!" I choked down a giggle at the irony of the lady's tone paired with her message. By the time she said, "be sweet" for the fifth time, her voice was so strained, she sounded like Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show.

I figured that the voice I had heard must be coming from Marsha, the person I was supposed to be reporting to this morning, so I walked over to the door and almost tripped over a woman in her mid 30s with an utter-like breast shoved into a funnel attached to a long plastic arm that she was working in and out like an old well. She was sitting on a child-sized chair with her knees spread apart as wide as they would go.

I was mortified. I stumbled backwards, doing everything I could to get the hell out of there as fast as I possibly could. "You must be Erin." Furious pumping continued, the pace never faltering for one moment as she said this. "I....uh, sorry I'm early. I didn't mean to..." She cut me off by making a loud lip smacking sound, "A bup bup! It's fine! It's fine! I'm just pumpin' real quick before all the rest of the rugrats get here."

At that moment, a blonde haired, blue eyed little cherub pushed his way past me and said, "I wa baba." To which Marsha shook her head (still pumping!), saying, "I already told you, Jet. No baba til breakfast! Now get!" The kid stamped his foot, crossed his arms and stuck his tongue out at her. Marsha's eyes bulged and the pumping slowed ever so slightly as she started to move to a standing position. That was all it took. He ran toward the door and I saw him dive into a bean bag chair on the other side of the classroom.

"EH-KNEE-way," Marsha said, exagerrating each syllable as she rolled her eyes and pulled the machine off her breast with a loud thwap sound. I tried to look anywhere but straight ahead as Marsha positioned the device over her other nipple and tried not to spill the yellow-y white breast milk that sloshed around in the attached bag (which I later learned was called a bladder BLADDER! (I just threw up in my mouth a little bit).

Without even resting, Marsha started pumping again. "You got kids yet?" I shook my head as I studied a stain on the carpet. "You're lucky. Want my advice? WAIT...and be smart about who your givin' the honey to if you know what I'm sayin'." With that she did a little head nod with a wink, giving me a wise, worldy, 'don't make the same mistakes I did' kind of a look. "Look at me! I gotta use this God forsaken machine morning, noon and night all because Todd decided to get boxed wine one night instead of condoms. If I don't pump like this, when I go on the bus after work, my titties are all wet." For some reason, at this point, she sat up and got a little more passionate about what she was telling me. It was almost as if she thought I didn't believe her. "God's honest truth, there is so much milk coming out of these fun bags, it soaks right through my bra and makes the whole upper half of my shirt wet! I'm usually so dead tired by the time I leave this place though that I don't even notice until I see some old perv across from me poppin' wood, thinking he's in the middle of some Goddamn "Girls Gone Wild" Video."

She sighed and said, "So...I pump a lot...that way, my jugs aren't all leaky and all 'Look at me! Look at me!' You know what I'm sayin, girlfriend?" I laughed uncomfortably. I had no fuckin' idea what she was 'sayin'. I breathed a sigh of relief when we were interupted by 2 boys that looked to be about 3 years old. One came running into the office holding a Fisher Price truck above his head. A second later, another little boy followed, eyes ablaze as he reached out, punching the other little boy in the back. Marsha positioned herself between the battling kids and said to me, "Grab that thing, will ya?" I did as I was told, apologizing as I pried it out of the little hands that were holding onto it for dear life. I finally was able to wrangle it away and I grinned at Marsha in victory. That's when the little brat kicked me in the shin! I bent down, clutching my ankle, letting out an anguished, "Ow--0--uch!" and dropping the confiscated toy in the process. The kid who'd been trying to get it didn't waste any time. He had that truck in his possession faster than a seagull who swoops down for a wayward french fry at the beach. The first kid screamed and chased after him out the door.

Marsha looked tired. "I hope you drank some coffee because that is how it's gonna be all day long. These munchkins are only here because their parents all give me an extra hundy under the table each week (huh, that answers THAT question)...which I would like to keep our little secret, if you know what I mean." She winked at me again, which I came to know as something that Marsha did constantly. I even wondered if it was involuntary for a while, but I decided it was way too context-specific.

The months that followed that first day were fun, unusual and definitely never boring. Marsha provided hours of unlimited entertainment. The level of inappropriateness I witnessed on a daily basis was awesome. I never did get used to seeing Marsha nonchallantly exposing her breasts for any man, woman or child, but I always felt lucky that she never asked me to assist in her in any way...because that could have made things really awkward.

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