Barb’s Burblings

Growing up, we always called our parents’ friends by their last names–Mr. and Mrs. Whoever. A few years ago, the wife of my dad’s best friend passed away. In a couple of months, my dad and I are going to go to an O’s game with his best friend and the best friend’s new lady friend. And I just realized that it’s going to be strange–not only meeting her, but…what do I call her?

The best friend will always be Mr. Best Friend to me. There’s no way I could call him by his first name. I can’t change after 31 years of calling him Mr. Best Friend. But I’m an adult now, and generally, when meeting other adults–even adults my parents’ age–I call them by their first names. I guess once you go to work and start having coworkers whose ages run the gamut, you kind of get out of the habit of the formal “Mister” or “Missus” or “Miss” or “Ms”. (Yes, obviously, there are times when I do still use “Mister” or whatever. Hmm, and I guess if I were to meet the parents of a future beau, I’d probably use “Mister” and “Missus” in that situation, too. But for the most part, it’s first names.) (I mean, really, a lot of my coworkers are near my parents’ age. Ditto people in my tap class.)

But I can’t imagine being able to call Best Friend’s Girlfriend by her first name. So I think I’m going to do what one does in this situation…just never address her directly as anything. Make eye contact when talking so I never have to figure out whether it’s “Girl” or “Miss Friend.”