There is a coffee-shop/diner a block away from our house, and the three of us go there about once a week. The remarkable thing about the place – aside from its tuna melts – is the fact that, without fail, someone there (either a customer or employee) assumes Zoe is a boy. A sample scenario:

Waitress: “So cute. A boy, right?”
Us: “No, a girl.”
Waitress: “Really? She looks just like a boy.”
(This despite the fact that Zoe arrived in a pink stroller and is wearing a head-to-toe pink outfit like the one below.)

I try not to take it personally when people think Zoe is a boy (her hair is pretty short, after all), but the frequency in which the mix-up occurs at this place (and only this place!) is driving me a little nuts. The first few times it happened, we thought it was funny, but now, ten or fifteen visits later, I’m just perplexed. Does the restaurant’s lighting somehow make Zoe appear masculine? Do the restaurant’s patrons not know that girls, not boys, wear pink floral shirts? Is this a Candid Camera situation orchestrated to test our patience and film our reponse?

Whatever the case, we’ll continue going there (for the tuna melts) and continue dressing her in pink. One of these days we’re bound to hear, “So cute. A girl, right?”

-M

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 11:01 pm and is filed under 15.One year old. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.