Is it a boy or a girl?

This is not what you want to hear when someone’s peering into your pushchair. Especially if you’ve done everything in your power to make sure that the whole world knows that your lovely little bundle of joy is a girl. You’ve put her in a pink dress, pink booties, you’ve pierced her ears and you’ve stuck a pink head-band on her head. The infant in question has no hair, so the pink head-band makes it very clear that you’re dealing with a girl here.

I suffered the excruciating embarrassment yesterday when I bumped into my friend while I was out with my brother. My friend (let’s just call her Janice) has a baby girl and unfortunately Janice’s baby doesn’t resemble her at all – Janice is very pretty. The little mite looks the spitting image of her father who... how do I say this? He’s far more charming than he is good looking.

So my brother bends over the pushchair and says aaahhh, is it a boy or a girl? Well Jesus come here right now and kill me! I gave him the biggest nudge in the ribs I could manage without drawing too much attention to the baby’s mother but when my brother shouted at me “what”, I think we were busted.

Before Janice could say anything, I said to my brother, it’s a girl silly, why would you put a boy in a pink dress? My brother then said, aaahhh, isn’t she cute! At this point, I said OK, come on, let’s go now.

I know my brother’s a jack-arse because when we walked away, he said "I thought Janice was going to say PENNY FOR THE GUY"!