In an unprecedented turn of events, 27-year-old Jackie Hart was kicked out of her longtime friend circle last Tuesday after neglecting to participate in obsessing over a baby during the group’s weekly brunch outing.
“All I saw was eight women yelling at this baby, and one woman sitting there like normal,” says the group’s waiter Ted. “What was wrong with her?”
Hart’s frigid inability to suitably freak out about the baby left the other members of the group cold. “The rest of us are cooing and awwing like normal people, and she’s just sitting there, softly smiling,” says ex-friend and soon-to-be mommy, Sally Hampstead. “This baby was dressed in a strawberry dress. Let me repeat: Strawberry. Dress.”
When the ladies pressed Hart further about the incident, she reportedly admitted, “Babies are cute, I guess. I just don’t really want one.”
“Right then, we knew she had to be expelled,” says Hampstead. “What kind of woman doesn’t want to have a baby of her own to kiss and jiggle and just generally freak out over?”
Others in the circle felt some remorse about losing Jackie, but all agreed it was the right decision. Marilyn Keefer, a 31-year old founding member of the friend circle, lamented, “It’s sad because we had a lot of other things in common, like our love for gel nails and low-fat yogurt. But this was just too much of a barrier. It would be like having friends who look different from you. It works in commercials, but not in real life, you know?”
The ladies admitted that there had been other red flags besides Hart’s pathological lack of mommy-brain. Angie Morena, a full-time nanny until her fertility treatments kick in, noted, “Whenever one of us talked about our clock ticking, Jackie would just stare blankly at us. ‘I like my independence,’ she would say. We all laughed it off, but it turns out it wasn’t a joke.”
Keefer followed up with another haunting memory: “I remember one time we were all fantasizing about our own ‘buns in the oven’ and Jackie just said ‘I burn everything I bake,’ which is really disturbing now that we know the truth about her.”
All members seemed baffled by Hart’s odd behavior, but especially Hampstead, who asked the hard-hitting questions: “Don’t you think you’ll eventually want babies? Like, once you’re married?”
When questioned about her future plans, Jackie said, “I dunno. I guess I’ll focus on my career, friends, family, my community, academic pursuits, or the volunteer work I do.”
Adds Hampstead: “How sad is that?”
