by Maggie Downs posted in Mom Stories

Is there any device both so loved and so loathed, as is the breast pump"
It?s a great invention, of course. My breast pump allowed me to have necessary separation from my infant son ? to return to work, go to doctor?s appointments, to take some time for myself.
But it has also been my tether. I toted it to work, across the country, to friends? houses. Basically whenever I wasn?t with my child, my breast pump was my stand-in baby. It required nearly as much stuff too, from car chargers to ice packs, special bags and tubes, and oh so many shields.

My son was about a year old when I left town for a four-day conference ? the kid stayed at home with my husband, but the breast pump came with me. Several times a day, the people I shared a hotel room with tried to ignore the ?sluuurp-pah, sluuurp-pah? of the pump as my nipples were tugged like saltwater taffy, milking until the cows came home. But that?s all in the past now. After 2.5 years, I?m done with nursing. But it only just occurred to me that means I?m done with my breast pump too.
I made the connection when I stumbled across a friend?s Facebook post that said she daydreams of ways to break up with her breast pump. Like taking a baseball bat to it in a field, à la the printer scene in Office Space.
So what are some of my dump-the-pump fantasies"

? Taking it out for a romantic dinner and saying, ?Pump, it?s not you. It?s me.?
? Dropping it from a tall building on an isola...