"It's the baby's first day out!" a woman greeted me as she, her dufflebag and a girl who appeared to be about ten boarded my taxi for a ride at the festival on the river this weekend. I wondered to myself whether this poor little girl hadn't gotten out of the house in ten years. The woman pointed to her dufflebag and explained they had to leave the baby home with a sitter when they went to an amusement park the day before. I was appalled. She was carrying a baby in a dufflebag?! All that came to mind to say in this situation is that it was a nice day to be outside, although I told myself I'd try to stay away from the generic subject of weather when making conversation with my riders.
Beyond confused and perplexed as to why anyone would carry a baby in the dufflebag, even though I noted it did have some netting for air circulation in areas, I started pedaling and my thoughts started reeling. Maybe the baby was premature and needed tubes and devices in the bag to survive. Maybe she was albino and really needed to stay out of the sun. Maybe they were really afraid of germs. I kept sneaking a peek back at the dufflebag and trying to look through the netting. I could make out blankets and a stuffed animal, but definitely no baby. Maybe it was a class project for her daughter who had to look after a baby doll for the weekend. In which case I thought: FAIL. It's in a dufflebag.
The woman sat with the dufflebag in her lap as I racked my brain to come up with questions that wouldn't be offensive, but would help me figure out what was in that bag. "Is it a real baby?" seemed far too insensitive if it was indeed a real baby that needed for some medical reason to be carried in the bag. Then the woman told me a story about how she rescued the baby after it was found drowning in a pond. I whipped my head around again, straining to get a good look at whatever was on the other side of the netting. It has to be the stuffed animal, I thought, and concluded this woman may have an obsession with suffed animals much as I know, thanks to cable television, doll collecting can become an obsession for some women, and men for that matter. Okay, so she's referring to a stuffed toy as a baby. Peculiar, but not unheard of. I really had nowhere to go with the conversation with her because this was all still an assumption. Luckily it was a very short ride.
The little family disembarked and the woman started to unzip the dufflebag asking, "do you want to see the baby?" I'm glad she offered because otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd still be confused. Absolutely, I said, but was bracing myself for the reaction I'd have if she showed me a real baby or a raggety looking, formerly waterlogged stuffed animal. Yes, there was a stuffed bear, a few blankets and in the one corner of the dufflebag, she pointed out, there was the three week old baby. I gasped, but it was more of a sigh of relief. This was indeed a baby... a baby kitten. No bigger than the size of my hand. Barely moving, but absolutely adorable baby Lucky, as they told me they named her. Lucky for me, too, that I didn't have to report anyone to child services for keeping a baby in a bag.
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