How to Take a Compliment?

Babies are pretty much public property. If you have the temerity to take them out in public, everybody feels it necessary to comment on them. We've been lucky enough to avoid the annoying bossy comments (Why isn't he wearing socks? Isn't he cold? Are you feeding him enough? Why don't you try what-the-fuck-ever?), though, and most of them are either comments on how bizarrely serious and watchful he is or compliments on his enormous eyes.


Gratuitous picture of Jim impersonating a bazooka.

This week we've gotten two comments that I found particularly entertaining. The first was at Home Depot (getting chicken coop supplies!), when the most stereotypical good ol' boy ever walks up and bashfully goes, "Y'all sure got a purty baby." You don't expect rough-looking farmboy types to comment on babies, so it was just terribly sweet and adorable. The second was at Dairy Queen yesterday. Jim and I were sharing a Blizzard to kill time while the car was being worked on, and this crotchety old lady walks in. After letting the staff know her extreme displeasure with several elements of the establishment, she marches up to us and goes, "That's a very handsome baby you got there, and I bet he looks just like his daddy, 'cause he sure don't look a thing like you."

Um. Thanks? How exactly is one supposed to respond to that? I said "Thank you," of course, 'cause my mama raised me right - that's what you say to compliments, even weird possibly-not-complimentary ones. But still, it kept me busy for the next ten minutes or so trying to figure out a better reply.