If You're Expecting People to Look at Your Maternity Photos, the Least You Can Do is Include a WWII Crash Landing Behind You

Daily Mail -  Spectacular photos have revealed the terrifying moment a WWII plane crashed into the sea just yards away from a heavily pregnant mother during a maternity photo shoot in Florida.

Mother-to-be Kristan Othersen, 22, was showing off her 30-week bump with her boyfriend, Kyle Johnson, 23, on busy Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral, on April 17.

The TBM Avenger was taking part in a nearby airshow, so many beach-goers remained unfazed as it flew low across the water while people swam underneath.

But its engine had failed and Kristan's mother Amber, who was taking the maternity photos, quickly turned her camera on the plane as it crashed down into the sea.

Fortunately neither the pilot nor any people on the beach were injured. 

I'm sure Kristan Othersen and Kyle Johnson are wonderful people and a loving couple who are going to raise a fine child together. 

That said, maternity photo shoots are a thing now? I can honestly say this is the first I've ever heard of these. My experience with pregnant women is that, while they tend to be positively glowing on the inside, on the outside the miracle of childbirth is pretty much boiled down to discomfort and body dysmorphia. And the last thing they want is a lot of photos to immortalize the memory. Two weeks before my maternal Irish Rose gave birth to No. 1 son, we went to a night time wedding at an upscale hotel downtown. And while she didn't exactly avoid the cameras, all I remember is her waiting for the cake to be served so we could Irish Exit our way out of there so she could get home and into a robe and slippers. 

But I'm not surprised this exists now. It's only natural that the generation who brought us Promposals, plans parties around asking someone to marry you, invented Gender Reveals, and posts every mildly memorable moment of their ordinary lives on the internet would buy a gown and get their hair and makeup did, just so they can overshare yet another private moment that most people have been through. It's the 2020's equivalent of back in the 90s when young parents would make their friends watch home videos. Pretending to care about watching some newborn discover her feet and pretending to be interested was excruciating. I'd thought we'd moved past that as a culture. Only it's gotten a thousand times more prevalent.

Still, good for you, Kristen and Kyle. Good for you.

I just want their whole generation of narcissists to be put on notice. If you're going to expect the rest of us to ooh and aah about yet another aspect of your humdrum existences, this is how you do it. I would sit through a dozen couples making me go through their wedding albums and baby photos if it meant getting to watch a fricking vintage Grumman-made TBM Avenger torpedo bomber safely crash land on the waves. 

That son of a bitch made its debut at the Battle of Midway. And by the end of the war sunk the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi. Hell, when my kids were younger we made entire weekend plans around going to airshows, just to watch planes like this land on their landing gear on runways. Why wouldn't I want to see one pulling a Tom Hardy in "Dunkirk"? [Spoiler]:

So congrats, but also thank you to the happy couple. It was an accident, but you may have just inadvertently saved us all from the scourge of everyone in this generation and the next trying to push maternity photo shoots on the rest of us by taking some that can't possibly be matched. And if that's the case, your unborn baby has already made a huge contribution to society.