I work in a lovely cocoon. Sometimes I have to spend times away in somewhat remote areas. In order to pretend I have all my creature comforts, I get a kinda mobile home to sleep in, and there’s a truck that cooks up some pretty amazing food. This, in fact, is better than being at home where there is usually no food but almost premium card membership (from extensive use) of one or more of the on-line aggregators of local delivery services. Lazy, yes, but this is how we Liverpudlians rock and roll.
So, this food that’s made in this truck is glorious. It’s not fast food. It’s old fashioned full-on carefully prepared and cooked food. The type of food people used to cook 100 years ago.
Yum.
Anyway, this food is served up by a lady who may well have been serving up food 100 years ago, I’m not sure. Is that a bit cruel? It’s not meant to be. She’s lovely.
Well, she’s lovely, but. But, she calls me strange things. Strange things that I’ve not been called before.
She calls me, “Baby Doll”.
There, I’ve said it. Or rather, she’s said it. Many times. “There you go, Baby Doll,” as she hands over a plate of perfectly cooked dinner.
‘Baby Doll’? How can I be a ‘Baby Doll’? Is it a rude thing to call me? Should I feel abused? I’m so very confused.
At first I thought it was just me that was her ‘Baby Doll’. Crestfallen, I sussed that she was calling lots of people ‘Baby Doll’. It made me feel so unspecial.
Just as I was going to confront her about her two-timing, or multiple-timing in fact, she suddenly called me, “My pudding.” As in, “There you go, my pudding.”
“My pudding”?
What happened to ‘Baby Doll’? Ok, I wasn’t ‘Baby Doll’ every time, true. Sometimes it was “my love” or “hun”, but being ‘Baby Doll’ made me feel special.
But ‘my pudding’, well, is that even complementary?
Just as I feared I had lost my ‘Baby Doll’ status and become instead a mere ‘pudding’, she did start calling me ‘Baby Doll’ once more the very next meal break. She obviously hadn’t chucked me.
Pretty soon this lovely lady and her pet phrases and I will part for the last time. She will move on to other ‘Baby Dolls’ and I will be back to on-line ordering takeaway food directly to my door. But, I won’t forget her, nor will I forget the short time in my life that I was a ‘Baby Doll’.
England's England 