The second season of Ladies of London ended this week with a BANG—I am referring to the sound of my heart exploding in agony and grief—but the most chilling moment, perhaps, came at the beginning of the episode, from the mouth of a 3-year-old British gentleman by the name of Max Hermer.
“Do you want to go on a walk?” Marissa Hermer, a Ladies of London cast member and former American, asks her son. “We can pick up the newspapers, and get some more coffee, and maybe go to La Botega?”
“Maybe could I get a babyccino?” Max Hermer asks, in a faint Italian accent.
“You may get a babyccino, yes you may,” Marissa Hermer replies, straight-faced but clearly—I know her, we’ve spent 18 episodes together—thrilled by her delightful progeny’s cosmopolitan display.
What. Is. A babyccino. What is that? Why is that? Honestly, I am not surprised by this at all—Marissa Hermer is the dark queen of the Smug Marrieds, a woman so relentlessly curated, so beautifully turned-out, so utterly on-task, so hopelessly in love with her successful husband and lovely babies and perfect home and amazing friends that keep getting more amazing every season as she subtly dumps the less socially viable ones... Marissa Hermer will rule this planet one day, and eventually will suffocate us all in a beautiful cloud of organic perfume and sarin gas. “Thank you so much, Marissa,” we will say gratefully, as our lips fall off.
But I digress! A babyccino, according to this 2012 article in New York, is a $2 cup of steamed milk that rich people buy for their tiny children. Fuck your mac ‘n cheese, and don’t try me with your candy, howl the 2-7 year olds of pre-apocalyptic gentrificatoriae. We would like fancy milk, hot.
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