"HONEY?"

I just made a reservation for dinner at a nice restaurant in Coral Gables. The woman who took the reservation, who is a lot younger than I am -- I know this because everybody in the world, including recently unearthed fossils, is a lot younger than I am -- took the information, then said: "And the name, honey?" So I told her my name, and she said,  "OK, honey, see you tomorrow." My question is: If she talks this way to total strangers on the phone, what does she call people she actually knows?

Comments

[K]

You want fries with that?

[Somewhere North]

This is obviously a high class restaurant. Otherwise the hostess would have called you dipsh*t

[Aunt Nancy]

S'North - **SNORK**

[Fort]

Pookielips comes to mind.

[MOTW]

Darlin'

[Dave]

Fort, that is our special name.

[Bumble]

I hear you Dave. People do the same thing to me. When creepy men I don't know call me "honey" or "hon" or "sis" or "sweetie" at work it makes me want to smack them. It's condescending and obnoxious.

[magic8ball]

My grasp of geography is tenuous at best, but I believe there is a possibility that you may, technically, be living in "the South." If that is the case, "honey" is a perfectly legitimate form of address - kind of like the way people in England call everybody "love," including complete strangers on the phone.

[Dav e]

magic: I don't live in the South: I live in South Florida, which is a combination of Latin America, New York and Mars. I know what a southern "hon" sounds like. This was not that.

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

I get "honey", "hon", "darlin", "sweetie", etc. all the time, from both men and women. Alas, I live in the south.

I think I'll have some fun with the next few callers. I double-dog-DARE myself!

[Boo Augustus]

So it wasn't a southern "honey?"

Did it sould more like "honey" as in "Honey, you haven't taken the trash out yet." Maybe you called home and didn't realize it (or called the house from the garage, as the case may be).

[Bryce]

Maybe she calls people she knows by derogatory names. Then when they get offended, she just says, "Aw, come on ass clown, you know I love you."

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

Wait--So what are you saying, Dave? You think your wife is secretly working as the greeter at that restaurant?

[Brian B]

bee vomit?

[Dave]

"Bee Vomit" WBAGNFARB.

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

...still waiting for the phone to ring...

[Fort]

Sorry, pookielips;) Have fun at dinner.

[elle]

Hey, it beats "Titbot" any day...

[blog girl #85]

Prolly she calls them:
You're my teddy bear, sugar pie, pumpiumpiumpkin, you're my sweety pie...

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

"Titbot" will be an excellent term of endearment to use! But I think my phone is broken. Can you fix my phone, Farkelle?

[Greg]

"Dave?"

[Cheesewiz]

Dave:
It was either an unconscious term of endearment or she's trying to get in on the hunka, hunka, burning love, Dave Barry gravy train.

[Eleanor]

Dave - are you sure that you didn't call Applebees?? i hear that's what they train their staff to call people.

[GDogg]

Angel-nipples

[K-Fed]

Dave, you specifically pointed out that this person was younger than you. Perhaps she was calling you "honey" in the way that the staff in a nursing home call old men "honey". Did she seem to be talking a little too loud? Were you drooling, or did you forget why you called halfway through the conversation?

[mudstuffin]

rats. forgot to change my name back - that was me, not K-Fed.

[mudstuffin]

some haiku:

youth call me "mister"
the freak flag no longer flies
time moves too quickly

my daughter's surgeon
has zits, piercings, and says "dude"
I feel vertigo

they do not realize
they are all so beautiful
all those dumbass kids

[Christobol]

Dave,

It had to be a mistake. For one thing, there are no nice restaurants in Coral Gables.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Dave, I think she was biting her lip not to call you another name, especially once she heard your name, because of how evil the Hunt was this weekend. Especially the rock, paper, scissors puzzle. You could probably safely translate 'honey' to 'booooooooooooooooooooooooooo'.

[scat]

mud, our freak flag will always wave! Also, I'm pretty sure Jimi Hendrix works at my local Best Buy.

[GDogg]

Smoochy-buttocks

[scat]

Did I say "wave"??? Good grief. My freak flag is currently flailing, not flying.

[naah...]

Maybe she heard Barry and thought Manilow.

[naah...]

Maybe she heard Barry and thought Manilow.

[philintexas]

Dave... some southern waitresses use the term of endearment: stud.... I used to worry about it but got board.

Bumble....get a grip

[Andy]

Dave: '"Bee Vomit" WBAGNFARB.'

Andy: I swear I am not making this up: There was once a band in Nashville called:

Mouth Full of Bees

I saw that name on a marquis of a club when I was young, and I have never forgotten it.

I have no idea if they were any good. But I've always thought they had a great name.

[wondering]

*SNORT* Smoochy-Buttocks!!! *SBORT*

I so want to use that term, I might even start dating again!

[Flash]

Are you sure it was Honey, not Horny?

[Age]

Sugar Booger?

Smookie Bear?

Dahlink?

[GDogg]

Chuckletrousers

[Annie Where-but-here]

Just be happy she didn't call you "ma'am", as in "Would you like some help out ma'am?" or "Please don't hit me again with your walker, ma'am!"

and remembering your point about everyone being younger than you (in Florida, no less!), are you sure you heard her correctly?

[pogo]

Always the possibilty the waitress was a transplant, maybe a hurricane evacuee, from somewhere where "Honey" is a proper form of address.

I always liked, "Whatcha havin', Hoss?"

[pogo]

And then you can say, "I'll have a Heinekins, Honeykins, and a pork pig barbecue sammich with inside and outside meat."

[Leetie]

whatever you say, toots!

[Psycho Joe]

Honey, well, that's a lot better than asshole.

As for people she knows?

My guess is that she doesn't have any friends so she talks like that to everyone.

Also, random inspiration.

Primate Analingus WBAGNFARB.
IMHO.

8>

[Brad]

All I want to know is if there were lesbian cheerleaders in the bathroom.

[Psycho Joe]

Brad, i like the way you think.

[smelly gift baskets]

Smelly Gift Baskets Smelly gift baskets for all occasions.

[Doctor Worm]

My guess is, she doesn't call them anything, but immediatly proceeds to have sex relations with them in the foyer.

[Pyro's Gal]

At least it's better than "Schnookum-Cakes."

[Lindsey]

I call people I don't know honey or hon sometimes too. It's called being nice. What would you rather have had her call you?

[queensbee]

awww, just a term of endearment puddinpop.

[everysandwich]

Re: chucklestrousers. GDogg, is that a term of endearment or an insult? I can see how it could go either way, depending on who's chuckling and why. (Hey, Scat, email me if you get a chance so we can swap agency stories. Actually I've wiped most of mine from memory, but I want to hear yours.)

[lahdeedaw]

I rather like being called honey. Puts me in an infantile state rather quickly. Goo!

[Annie Where-but-here]

Wow - even stand-up comedians don't get heckled this badly, or in print, no less!

Jerry Seinfeld:"Didja ever call a restaurant and get called 'honey' by a total stranger?"
Heckler:"Yeah, so what?"
Jerry Seinfeld:"Well, I see a member of the Mensa society is here tonight..."

Dave::"Didja ever call a restaurant and get called 'honey?'by a total stranger?"
Heckle-blogger #1:"At least she didn't call you schnookums."
Heckle-blogger #2:"Shush. She was being nice."
Heckle-blogger #3:"Were you drooling?"
Heckle-blogger #4:"You're old and she can tell that over the phone."

[TCK]

my 7 year old daughter called me "cookie-lips" yesterday - but I think it was meant as an insult, cuz the cotnext was something like:

"oh yeah? Well, you're a cookie-lips!!"

sometimes I miss first grade

[TCK]

cotnext = context (for those of you that don't speak fumblefingers)

[hey]

Perhaps she wasn't saying honey, but homie.

I've always assumed people use endearments because they can't remember your name.

[Artchick]

Chuckletrousers? Somehow now I have a picture of Prince Charles being called that by Camilla. I have to go wash the inside of my eyeballs now.

[So Wrong]

I call my wife "Angel-tits". She calls me "Thunderf*ck".

[Mr. Completely]

My brother-in-law likes to change around the words to songs (but not like our Mudstuffin and C'bol and the rest) - anyway, he sings:

Let me call you "Sweetheart"
'Cause I forgot your name...

Well, it cracks ME up, anyway. Oh, look, a butterfly....

[jamester]

I wouldn't worry about it, Sweetcakes!
(and if you are reading this far down, have you and Ridley started the next Peter book?)

[Annie]

Way, WWWAAAYYY back in the dark ages when we didn't have radio or air conditioning in my dad's yellow and white Belair with the big back fins we would all sing on long road trips. My mom and dad taught us their version of Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Let me call you sweetheart
I'm in love with your automobile
Let me hear you whisper
That you'll pay the gasoline bill
Keep your headlights burning
And your hands on the sterring wheel
Let me call you sweetheat
I'm in love with your automobile!

Ok, at 5 yrs old I thought it was really cool.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Very funny again, Mr. C...oh, look, HONEY, a flutterby.

[Bumble]

philintexas~ I will get a grip. On their throats. And squeeze. Especially the doubly creepy and annoying ones who also try to put their arms around my shoulders. Old men should not say or do those things to young women they don't know. It's icky.

[Psycho Joe]

Wow, this is a long thread.

And i think
Angel-Tits WBAGNFARB

8>

[U.O]

Honeybuns?

(Besides which already ... I'm older than Dave ... whatever that means ... Heck, I'm so old I've gotten so inured to waitresses and others in the service/hospitality industry calling me "Sir" ... I don't even look over my shoulder any more, to see whom they are talking at ...)

[insomniac]

...maybe she was a Bobby Goldsboro fan...

[azred]

Yippie! Dave and I have the same pet peeve. when I'm feeling rude, I respond with something dorky like "honey? did we sleep together and I just forgot?" sometimes I turn in to a pile of drooling sugar and out-endear them "sweetie, darling, pookie......" and sometimes I just fume, go home and chase a buterfly.

[Sunny]

what does she call people she actually knows?

Mom, Dad, Bubba...

[Lt. Woman]

Okay.. just a couple of thoughts.. if anyone reads down this far.

I'm 31, and on the days that I feel about 91 (and no. I am NOT Anna Nicole looking for her next husband!), there's nothing worse than being "ma'am"-ed by some spotty highschool kid that needs the cash register to figure out the change from a $20 bill for something that cost $17.75.

I don't know that I'd appreciate "honey" any better than most of us seem to, but I'm a serial offender in the "honey, sweetie, darlin'" category, although only with people I know, so I shouldn't complain. It's not that I forget names, it just takes me a few seconds to remember them, as they're stored in my memory after important stuff like advertising jingles from the early 80's and the addresses of all the houses I've lived in, the phobias of long-dead Swedish kings..not that I ever need to know any of these things.. but the name file is stuck behind them and I can't get to it that quickly. That and I work with small children who get upset if I muddle their names more than twice in any given hour. So people that I know don't get called by their given names very often.

[Wally Ballou]

C'mon Dave, your comment just shows that Florida (at least SE Florida) is not really in the South, or you wouldn't even notice. Down here in Dixie, if a waitress didn't call you "honey" you'd think you'd done somethign terribly wrong.

My wife and I had dinner last week in a cheap but good restaurant in Lynchburg, VA and the waitress was a Chinese college student and SHE called us "honey". She had picked it up.

I kinda like it. What I DON'T like to the point of snarling surliness is strangers using my first name.

[Jacki]

I agree with the others that she was either a) a transplant from the real South, such as KY where "honey" is everyone's first name or b) aware that she would be working the night of your visit and was hoping you might remember her.

When you arrive you should walk in the door and say, "Honey, I've missed you so!" and give her a big swooping kiss.

Of course you will promptly get your a$$ kicked by both your wife and the big bartender that is actually her honey, but it would make a great column.

PS Snork at Mudstuffin/K-Fed

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

I agree with Bumble. I don't like being hit-on by creepy men under the guise of "being friendly."

[MOTW]

Bumble and Tamara - I once worked at a machine shop. One of only four females in the whole place. Part of my duties were to take work order copies to the various part managers, pick up time tickets, etc. (For youse younger ones- this is before computer networks. We kept books by hand writing in them, typed up each WO and invoice - did everything by hand.)

One day, I'd had enough of the whistles and cat calls as I passed through the shop. I stopped and slowly turned around, smiling. I walked over to the guy who'd made the commotion (it was obvious who he was 'cuz he was blushing and the others were pointing to him), smiled even more sweetly and said, "There's only one man I allow to look at me like that, and that's my husband. Please don't whistle at me again." I spoke softly enough over the noise of the machines that only the guy and the two on either side of him heard me. Then I walked out.

There was all kinds of noise after I left, but the guys respected me after that.

[Bumble]

Tamara~ My best friend works as a cashier, and she once had a creep come through her line and try to pick her up. She's 22, and this guy was probably in his 70s. When she turned him down, to be nice, she explained that she already had a boyfriend. Like that was the reason she couldn't go out with him. The old guy goes, "I'll bet he couldn't take care of you like I can. I've got a great pension." There's a pick-up line for you.

[MOTW]

Bumble There's a pick-up line for you. ROTFL! Yeesh!

[Bumble]

MOTW~ Way to handle it well.

An example of reverse psychology: When I was in junior high, the boys liked to tease me. Not because they liked me, just the opposite in fact. They would act like they liked me as a big joke because they didn't. Make sense? Oh, well. Anyway, one day in the lunch room one of the boys goes "Hey, you're looking hot today" or something along those lines; I don't remember for sure. I could tell he was being sarcastic, though I doubt he was intelligent enough to know the meaning of the word. My first instinct was to flare up or get huffy, but I knew they would have just laughed; that was what they wanted. So I smiled, batted my eyes at him and said in a sultry voice, "Thanks." The guy goes "Oh, gross!" and runs in the opposite direction. It was hilarious.

[Estelle Chauvelin]

Being called "honey" by strangers younger than I is one of the main reasons I wish English had formal and informal words for "you," the way Spanish and French do. Get people thinking in terms of whether it's appropriate to behave familiarly with somebody.

[Ivory Bill Woodpecker]

I bet Bumble's actually a babe and those junior high guys were fools.

KY? Is that where K-Y jelly comes from?

"Cookie Lips", "Chuckletrousers", "Reverse Psychology", and "The Long-Dead Swedish Kings" all WBGNFRBs. So would "The Active Ingredients", although that phrase didn't occur on this thread (until now)!

I'm on vacation after tonight! Yayyy me! :)

[Sondra]

When I was bookkeeper in a warehouse, and was being hooted at, the guys were calling to me in Spanish (in Houston) because they thought I couldn't understand them. So, I walked over to them one day, they all got real quite, and I explained to them that I didn't think it was appropriate to say those things to a married lady. I said it in Spanish. Their eyes got big as plates and they apologized, saying that they had no idea I was married and certainly wouldn't have said anything, had they known.

It's nice to give people (even gas poles) a face-saving out. They were very polite after that.

[Tamara Rhymes With Camera]

I bought a car because I had to walk past construction workers and an auto repair place to get to my office, and I'm much too introverted to chew anybody out.

[MOTW]

Tamara, take your sweet camera with you. When the buggers begin to taunt, you can pretend to take their picture. Or you could actually take their picture and mail it to the construction company. Ask Polly for tips. \(^.^)/

The office where I work has so many nauseaus training sessions about Diversity awareness and being politically correct that it's rare to hear even a "good morning" from folks, much less a "hey, nice dress" or "your hair looks good today" for fear they'd be sued for harassment. When I cut and donated 12-inches of my hair last year, it was a full week before anyone said something about it!

*sigh* Can't there be something in between construction worker and P.C.-Diversity-Fever ?

[Aunt Nancy]

Tamara R.W.C. - want to borrow this?

[Ivory Bill Woodpecker]

"P. C. Diversity Fever"? Didn't the Bee Gees compose the soundtrack of that movie?

[Aunt Nancy]

MOTW - there used to be something between construction worker and P.C. Diversity Fever. It was called Common Courtesy. Unfortunately, it's now all too uncommon.

[sct72]

FIRST!

[Funny Name]

Am I the only one who snorked at "smelly gift baskets?" I thought it was a pretty hilarious non sequitur, considering it was spam.

[Single Bumble]

IBW~ Thanks for the vote of confidence. Yes, they were mostly fools. Probably still are. I was the type of student who got decent grades, mostly got along with my teachers and read actual BOOKS for fun. Those qualities aren't popular with guys that age.

Who am I kidding? They still aren't.

[just sayin']

hang in there Bumble. most guys get their priorities straight by the time they're 35ish.

(as you have witnessed with the chummy ol' geezers .. some never do.)

*squirts Bumble with reddi whip for OTS*
;)

[Eternally Single Jacki]

I feel your pain Bumble...sigh

[Naiobi]

I live in the South and run two properties with a large number of contractors and landscapers and the like and I am probably the worst offender in the honey baby sugar catagory. I was asked by my asst. Manager what a guys name was that she was pointing to and I actually said "He answers to darlin'". When she asked me again I had to admit I didn't know. It also drives my hubby nuts as he has friends who have eaten dinner at my house and I still don't know there names. Of course I don't really care either. When you have friends that actually will answer to "Prick" you have a problem.

[Bumble]

Jacki~ We should get together for a girl's night out. We'll get ourselves looking hot, find all the creeps who looked down on us in school, make them drool, and laugh at how pathetic they are.

"And while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony..."

[U.O]

... and then, of course, there's the whole pension thing ...

[JP]

Mmm... nothing quite like being called what is apparently a sexual innuendo in German by a total stranger....

(the story is long. Maybe when i have a LOT of time....)

[hem]

compared to the range of things people are called

honey is just a bee-sting short of a kiss

you whining or what?

you want abuse - send troops overseas without a clue as to when they'll come home for good. that i save for Mr Cheney and our PResident. Shouldn't print it here in your happy space

bee-stings! xxx stung in mn

[just sayin']

U.O. I just made the connection ... Snork

[Janelle]

Dave,

I have a BA in Sociology and have a "knack" and passion for studying the language / personality and behavior of all types of folks, in every region of our country and abroad. I have found that people of whom refer to other's as "honey" are usually those that are socially inept and unaware of appropriate interaction skills. Unfortunately a majority of these folks work in some type of retail or other type of work where they are interacting with the general public in "casual and unprofessional jobs". I saw this at a bar where a young girl bartender called what appeared to be an older professional man "honey". After all, a hostess, waiter, or bartender tend not to the brightess bulbs on this planet and are probably unaware of their ridiculous condescending and PATRONIZING form of communication. After all they are taught to patronize the customer for business.