Thoughtless for the Day

I woke up in the middle of last night, turned on BBC America, and managed to catch a documentary called My Fake Baby which tells the story of several British women who collect "re-borns": horrifyingly realistic baby dolls.

When I finally did get back to sleep, it was with the lights on, and only after I'd checked the lock on the front door four times. Just knowing that there are grown women out there eager to spend money on a fake baby (Vienna woke up about halfway through the show and watched quietly for about five minutes before saying, "There's actually a market for those things?"), spend additional money on outfits and then wheel them around town in baby carriages (At least those Real Doll weirdoes do whatever it is they do behind closed doors. The film Lars and the Real Girl notwithstanding, I have yet to see a guy drag Inflatable Debbie to Le Bec Fin for a romantic dinner) gave me the willies.

Blame evolution. Our species' big brains require that we spend a large percentage of our lives as children. Without the co-evolution of a strong maternal instinct, our baby ancestors would've been unsupervised and therefore crawled their way to extinction millennia ago. Not that that excuses the bizarre behavior exhibited in My Fake Baby.

The pivotal personality in My Fake Baby is a woman named Christine who had cared for her grandson, Harry, while his mother underwent treatment for cancer. After the boy's mother recovered, her and her new husband moved to New Zealand, taking little Harry along. Despondent, Christine turned to the re-birth community. Soon she was to proud yet creepy owner of a baby Harry doll. [Heartbreak alert: When Christine gets her re-born she sobs, "Nobody will be able to take him away this time; will they?"]

Her husband's reaction to the doll isn't quite what she'd expected. "It looks like something on a mortician's slab", the understandably creeped-out guy says with a visible shudder before making a hasty exit from the room. Undaunted, she next decides to show the doll to little Harry via a webcam (I'm amazed that no one from the film crew stepped in and said "Jesus Christ, lady, you'll traumatize the poor kid.").

Cut to the next scene: there's little Harry on the monitor and Christine says, "I've got something to show you; it's my new baby." Harry, apparent proof that being a sucker doesn't skip a generation, looks at the hideous thing and calmly says, "It's a doll."

"Nooooooooooo," coos grandma, "it's a widdle baaaaaby."

With impeccable timing, little Harry waits a beat before saying "No; it's a doll, numbnuts!"