Sorry, but the baby is NOT on the menu!
Imagine it: You're five months pregnant and waiting tables to help make ends meet. You're married too, but you don't wear your ring at work. You go to pick up the check holder on a table and the party who was there paid for the meal and left you a tip--as well as a card that mentions that one of the couples was looking to adopt a baby.
How would you feel?
Julie Moore, the woman who had this scenario actually happen to her, was a little creeped out by the whole thing. I don't blame her. Let's face it: Waitressing isn't an occupation many people think highly of. And a waitress who has a bun in the oven and no ring around her finger probably gets her share of disapproving or pitying glances and comments from thoughtless patrons. So picking up the check holder and finding a card that pretty much asks her for her baby, well, there's probably no good way to take that. If it were me, I'd probably call the number, ask for the fictional Joan, and act like I was considering adopting out my future kid, only to pull back and decline, saying that I wouldn't want my kid to be raised in a such a tact-free environment. And then I'd blog about it. But that's me.
Of course, maybe this couple is blanketing the town with these little cards, sticking them in phone booths, laundromats, and public washrooms. Maybe they hand them to everybody, pregnant or not. (If they do actually do the latter, who wants to bet that they hand them to pretty white girls in low-income positions and not, say, minorities in low-income positions or pregnant lawyers.) In any case, it doesn't matter: Advertising your desire to adopt a baby in the same manner you might advertise a couch for sale, prostitutes in Japan, or losing weight now after asking me how is pretty damn tacky. It takes a private, special thing and lowers it to slimy depths. (Can you imagine telling your kid that you adopted her from someone who called you because they found your card in the mall food court washroom?)
What's next? Adoption spam? UPP&R M1DDEL CLA$$ W0MAN WANT$ UR BAB11Z NAOW!!111
How would you feel?
Julie Moore, the woman who had this scenario actually happen to her, was a little creeped out by the whole thing. I don't blame her. Let's face it: Waitressing isn't an occupation many people think highly of. And a waitress who has a bun in the oven and no ring around her finger probably gets her share of disapproving or pitying glances and comments from thoughtless patrons. So picking up the check holder and finding a card that pretty much asks her for her baby, well, there's probably no good way to take that. If it were me, I'd probably call the number, ask for the fictional Joan, and act like I was considering adopting out my future kid, only to pull back and decline, saying that I wouldn't want my kid to be raised in a such a tact-free environment. And then I'd blog about it. But that's me.
Of course, maybe this couple is blanketing the town with these little cards, sticking them in phone booths, laundromats, and public washrooms. Maybe they hand them to everybody, pregnant or not. (If they do actually do the latter, who wants to bet that they hand them to pretty white girls in low-income positions and not, say, minorities in low-income positions or pregnant lawyers.) In any case, it doesn't matter: Advertising your desire to adopt a baby in the same manner you might advertise a couch for sale, prostitutes in Japan, or losing weight now after asking me how is pretty damn tacky. It takes a private, special thing and lowers it to slimy depths. (Can you imagine telling your kid that you adopted her from someone who called you because they found your card in the mall food court washroom?)
What's next? Adoption spam? UPP&R M1DDEL CLA$$ W0MAN WANT$ UR BAB11Z NAOW!!111