Heads or Tails? Black or Red? Girl or Boy?

I am now of the size where random passerbys like to play the "guess what's in my belly" game. Here's how the game is played:

1. While browsing around a funky shop on The Avenue during Hon Fest last weekend, the sales associate asks if I'm having a boy. Nope, I tell her, guess again! I move on.

2. Friday while paying for goods at another store on The Avenue, the cashier says, "Are you having a boy?" My reply, "Not according to the sonogram, but you're the second person who guessed that. Why do you ask?" Her answer: because I seem to be carrying the weight just in my stomach rather than ballooning up all over...I assure her that I have trouble pulling pants up over my rump and hips and move on, slightly miffed that the option seems to be that if you're relatively fit, it's a boy, and if you're overweight it's a girl. Can I get some credit for continuing my exercise routine please??

3. On Saturday at a friend's wedding, the bride's mom (who I've known since high school) wanted to guess. Rather than blurting something out like the others, she carefully studied me from the front, then asked me to turn around. After a few seconds of deliberation, she guessed girl. Since she has three girls, I attribute a little bit of credo to her guessing game, though it could also be that one of her daughters told her what I was having a while back and she filed that in her subconcious memory. Either way, one guess for girl!! Whew!!

4. I stopped at Home Depot after work today to grab a bunch of paint swatches so I can start figuring out what colors to paint the nursery. While leaving the store, a gentleman in a fire department t-shirt dining on a hot dog at one of the picnic tables out front calls out "You're having a boy, right." (I omit the question mark because he really wasn't asking.). I say no and he asks if I'm basing this on a sonogram. I let him know that actually, in addition to the sonogram, I have a string connecting two aluminum cans running down my esophogus and that very early on, Hannah whispered into her can that she was a girl and since I happened to be holding my can up to my ear at the time, I got the message. He assured me that he has never been wrong and that just the other day a woman gave birth to a boy, which he called, despite the fact that the sonogram claimed it would be a girl. He then explained that as a chaplain in the Army he has had many opportunities to play this game so the fact that he's never been wrong is a pretty big deal. He told me his name and asked me to find him on MySpace after the baby is born and let him know.

I figure people just love an opportunity to gamble. Since their odds are 50/50, I can see how it's a pretty fun guessing game. I'm a big fan of any game that only gives you two options to choose from. But regardless of the fun they're having, all their boy guesses are freaking me out. I guess it's a good thing we're going with a gender neutral theme of jungle animals, just in case these randomers practicing their psychic abilities know more than the lady with 30 years experience reading the sonogram....