Humor

I Couldn’t Tell the Supermarket Lady Her Baby Was Ugly

Of course, mother’s won’t tolerate such demeaning comments

Yup, some babies are really ugly. And you don’t even find them cute. Their face seems like someone superimposed a pug’s face on that of trump’s and passed it on to earth cos it had nowhere else to go.

Such babies never make it as baby models or actors. Why?

Obviously, no pregnant mother would want to see their picture for 9 months, if the belief “the to-be-born-baby looks like the baby a pregnant mom sees the most."

And no advertisement agency would want such babies to endorse any baby product where they specifically require close-up shots of the baby.

Yeah, they may have a chance in shots where characters are shown holding a baby, but its face is never shown. Such directors really care for their audience. They also ensure the family drama doesn't turn into a horror if the camera by chance captures the little monster hiding in the baby-sleeping bag.

No offense, but mothers have this weird thing that their baby should be titled the cutest. When they see you move ahead and sneak-a-peak at the fake nipple sucker, you have to do the following:-

1.Indulge in unnecessary baby talk, 2. Act playfully stupid, and 3. Compliment how cute the baby is.

This is the biggest reason I choose to avoid looking at the babies for sometimes I am not in the mood to pretend.

The Supermarket Lesson

I met a lady at the supermarket who was standing in front of me on the billing line. The line was long, the network not reachable, and I had some extra time to pass. What better timepass than a baby resting in a pram trying to shoot looks at you at point-blank range.

I went out of my line, literally, to bend down and play with the baby.

But when I saw its face I swear to god, the word 'yuck' almost had found its way out. There was nothing the baby had in the name of features. It seemed God had hurriedly assembled its eyes, nose, and mouth, to make it look like a standard face, and ears were hurriedly placed before closing the baby-producing factory. No doubt, the face looked animated to me as it was double the size of the baby’s minion body.

To top it up, the clothes wrapped around it didn't suit it at all. I mean think about this, if a baby suit cannot make a baby look cute, then what can?

And don't even get me started on the stench. I think it had produced a fresh batch of poop on an already lying river of urine. I am sure you can now do the math yourself. With such babies, you wouldn't mind puking into the pram, fully aware that the baby would still do just fine lying in that filth. In fact, your puke would be a cherry on the cake to say so.

Fully aware that the mother was watching me intently, I placed a Burj Khalifa on my heart and said, “Oh, what a cute little baby. Girl or a boy?” As if I was really interested, hmph! A boy, that one turned out to be. Wow, boys sure learn how to create a mess and stay cool about it right from their diaper days. But that day I discovered something about myself too.

I was one hell of an actress.

I played for around 15 minutes with the baby boy, not giving away the minutest hint of how much disgusted I felt by the baby. I was tempted to make the ‘Eww’ face every now and then but controlled myself. The least I thought I could do is pick it up by its butt, using my index finger and thumb, point its poopy ass toward the people standing in the front line, and shoo them away.

That way people could learn that ugly babies can be used creatively in a variety of situations. You just should know when and how.

While my subconscious was busing fighting the devil from coming out, I was trying to reason with myself that it was only a baby after all, and babies are by default cute.

But NO.

This baby was anything but cute. It was ugly, poopy, stinky and that was the fact. So I finally gave up. I stopped being a hypocrite. Left the baby blabbering its non- understandable baby language and started minding my own business.

P.S. I also excelled at ignoring the baby’s mother who gave me the ‘’why-did-you-stop-playing-with-my-baby?’’ Look. I could have given her ‘’I-played-with-your-baby-more-than-it-deserved’’ look, but being the nice girl I am, I just let it go.

Lesson learned

I was fooled that day at the supermarket billing line. I assumed the boy must have taken his mother’s genes. But I was so wrong. I should have tried to spot the father too and then arrive at a conclusion. From next time onwards, no matter what happens, I won’t get fooled by a beautiful mother and assume the baby to be beautiful too.

I have learned that nature can fuck up when it comes to mixing and matching and there’s no way to figure that out until the head pops out in front of you one day.

Obviously, it is too late to make amendments by then. And you’re not the kind of parent who would leave their baby in a basket outside the church's door on a rainy, just because it is ugly, would ya?

©Bhavna Narula, 2021.