Letters To My Male Friends: Dec. 2003

Well I've found it!!!! The Kryptonite for females!!!
I took Lilah out in public for the first time today. We went to the Cambridge Galleria today to return something and to pick up some more bras for Sophie. While she was in the changing room, I found myself in the toy section of Sears, which incidentally is cleverly sandwiched between the ladies underwear department and the infant/toddler section. Simon and I were involved in a deep intellectual discussion concerning the finer points of the weaponry of the various action figures lined up before us, I have a newborn baby curled up asleep up against my chest, and a proud-daddy beaming look on my face. Then suddenly it happened, we were spotted, and there was no where to run.
It was at this point in time that I learned a little lesson about life and I would say that while entertaining, overall it was not an entirely positive experience, nor one that I am sure that I can fully explain. I learned that I am unable to judge how any woman is going to react to seeing a newborn, regardless of age or creed.
We started getting cooed at by almost everything with ovaries. Two different times I was actually surrounded by women with nowhere to turn. Each of them had this sort of "Night Of The Living Dead" look on their face, as though Lilah was the last brain in town and I was hoarding her to myself. Only it was an affectionate, big-eyed, cooing, googley babbily, lip smacking, deliciously uncomfortable sort of experience that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I interacted with women from all walks of life tonight, I heard the gushing, spine-curlingly sweet assaults from almost all of them. There were a few wizened old hags and teenie-bopper girls who were immune to the power I now wield but at least they walked away with their dignity in tact.
The reactions from the rest could almost be broken down into categories. There were "head-tipping, ooooohhhhhhers", which tilt in both directions as though all bones in their neck suddenly disappeared. I witnessed the "koochie coo" (no, really!) maneuver which takes on sort of a mock tickling charade with it. I saw the "isn't she darlin'" which consisted of the addresser keeping their head tilted with their hands firmly clasped to each other under their chin while doe-eyed and staring as though trying to telekinetically float Lilah out of my hands and into their Macy's bag. I witnessed the soft "luh, luh, luh, luh, luh", kind of a creepy one usually done with the persons head and tongue wagging back and forth rapidly, like that's not going to scare the hell out of any kid.
Worst of all, by far, was the " baby talker". These come in usually either the soft or extremely loud variety, there seems to be no happy medium in this lot. It starts with "she's so darlin'" or some semblance of that, which quickly wanes down in volume to something that is utterly illegible. It goes something like this:"SHE"S SO CUTE, isn't she, isn't she yesohwhatacutelittleboobookittysweethoneypiekbaskbvsk.jbn.ajn.asnf.jhnuhwurhkkwjbnrkjbin'tshe". Sounds unbearable until you hear the extremely loud version of that same thing and then it makes you want to jam an ice-pick into your own ears just to make it stop. This reaction, at least three times tonight started off with a squeal, twice from more than twenty feet away with a quick rushing motion toward us with the volume of the woman's voice growing exponentially with each hurried step. I was bracing myself to be tackled as though I was holding the last cabbage-patch kid in the world on Christmas Eve. It was the same sort of full blown gibberish displayed, only it was more like a battle cry for all of the ovaries in a hundred foot radius to come rushing in.
The overwhelmingly astonishing issue of this whole fiasco was that Lilah stayed asleep through the whole trip, nary a peep out of the little one and barely even any eye opening or change of expression to mention. She wasn't even giving any feedback to these maniacal women who came and performed for us their secret baby cuddly tricks. But the variety of women that conducted themselves in this manner was truly a sight. They ranged from extremely homely to very beautiful, young to old, and very reserved to trying to reach for her and hold her ("NO FUCKING WAY, LADY"!).

I was later informing Mike as to this phenomenon, and he came up with a brilliant entrepreneurial solution. We start a daycare and rent the little kids out to bachelors for say $100 bucks an hour to go out and pick up women with. Revenue from both ends and a chance for men to take the power back I say. I could franchise it and make millions. "Chick-Magnet Day Care." We could open one in every mall across the country. Mike is already interested in taking her out for a spin.
Well I need to go try to recover from this revelation, talk to you all again soon. Guard this secret with your lives.