I don’t get it. She was 17, 20, or 22. She didn’t have a one-piece powder blue uniform with chocolate stains all over it, black cat-eye glasses, or 3 pencils sticking out of a tightly pulled hair bun in the back of her head, and yet when she approached me, she said “what’s it going to be “Hun?” Yea, there was a time when any young good-looking woman working at the restaurant, bar, or even the DMV called me “honey,” I was thrilled. Well, a slight exaggeration; any person who actually talks to you at the DMV is probably new, and on the verge of screwing up your license renewal, or getting fired for not acting like one of Satan’s minions. The point is, am I showing signs of advanced age, or are the young wait staff just out-of-place with their terms of endearment? I’m not sure what annoys me more; the fake “familiar sincerity” or the creeping of my own paranoia telling me the waitress calling me sweetie; she thinks she enhances her own tip.

I recall some TV show that followed a sometimes angry young woman around high school. At one point after being frustrated by her girlfriends il-confident comments claimed: “I’m going to have to start another women’s movement; obviously the first one didn’t take!” I’m not saying that the proliferation of “cuddle” comments are a direct affront to the women’s movement, but I’m pretty sure that if some cranky man, or woman prefaced each rude service comment with, “sugar, honey”, or “Tootsie” for that reason, it would not go over well. It has also occurred to me that I may be taking this all a little too serious, and making more out of this than I should………So, I  Googled “Waitress’s calling me Honey.”  Wow, there is a serious problem here as I am not the only one to find this odd. The country seems to be filling with this behavior and I thought it was on the way out. Truck Stop Heaven; here we come!

In the end, am I surprised by all this? No. Am I completely offended? No. Will I continue to ignore it…….not for long. Pardon the pun, but here’s some tips of my own; if you work with the public, and you have a regular, learn their name. If you want a better tip, stop texting behind the counter and bring the glass of juice I asked for 10 minutes ago. If you want to call me dear, wait until you’re at least 40 years older than me, or,”pick up the check” sweetie!