I’ve never seen an episode of Mad Men. Or Gossip Girl. Or Glee. Or The L Word.

I have, however, seen every single episode of Three’s Company. And Benson. And at least 95% of the entire Law & Order series.

This weekend I found myself in a maternity store on the Upper East Side, where I saw strange and terrible things I never knew existed: bras with snaps, maxi-pads for boobs (?!), Sevens with an eight-inch strip of black elastic sprouting from the waistband. At the register they sold boxes of hard candies called Preggie-Pops. I looked at the ingredients list. It was nothing but brown rice syrup and flavoring, but the price was $6 for 30 lozenges because the box featured a picture of a circular woman smiling in a field. She had one sweater tied around her neck and another sweater flung casually over her shoulder. Perhaps this is normal, for the Preggie-Pops demographic.

Things make sense according to what you know. You live in your rickety wooden frame of reference built from scraps of interest, memory and circumstance, and every now and then you realize there are strangers outside the window and they’re speaking in tongues. Do you need a translator, or do they?

I don’t know. I’m tired, I guess. I know how to say milk in Polish (mleczny) and I know the way to Waldoboro (up Route 1, hang a right). Everything else will have to wait.