Water cooler gossip

There must be a really strange magnetic pull right outside my office door because the two most bizarre comments ever made to me about adoption took place in the same spot by two different idiots gents. First, the union carpenter, Gene , was grilling me about adoption and stated “You gotta have your own kids. You're so young! Why don’t you have your own? You need to experience giving birth!”. He then went on to tell me all about his wife being pregnant way back when disco was the rage and how much fun she had. Really... I wonder what Mrs. Gene would say? And today, I was working with a student from Liberia (I am giving him some leeway due to our cultural differences) and he hears I may be going on maternity leave and says “Why you not have a baby…you're young, you should have baby, not adopt” "Why adopt? You have problem?” and then he launches into a story about his sister who has “problem”. Turns out he actually just gave her one of his kids, no questions asked, since he already had so many! He also wanted to know when I was leaving for China because "Americans love babies from China". I’m sure he is bummed we are just getting a boring Duluth baby. After he left, we had to laugh. By we I mean my entire office suite who heard everything. I would be offended by these comments but in reality, I pretty much tuned out after they both I insisted I am so young. Oh, go on!!!