REVELSTOKE, BC – Father of three Brian O’Shaughnessy is trying hard to scale back his habit of referring to himself as ‘Daddy’ instead of ‘Brian’ in conversations where he is not speaking directly to his own children.
The flub occurred three times yesterday: first O’Shaughnessy telling a telemarketer, “Sorry, Daddy is busy right now.” Then telling a convenience store worker, “Mmmmm, candy, Daddy like.” Finally when a Starbucks barista asked him what his name was, he told her his name was Daddy, which she dutifully wrote on his cup.
“I apologize to everyone that I made this mistake in front of this week,” said O’Shaughnessy, “I am a stay-home Dad and Daddy is what my clients call me at work. Sometimes Daddy gets mixed up, kind of like when you accidentally make personal calls on your work phone.”
According to an informal study conducted by Brian’s wife, Janine, O’Shaughnessy refers to himself as Daddy five times as much as he refers to himself as Brian.
“I don’t mind it, because when Daddy, I mean Brian, is speaking to Mommy, it’s in a family context and I understand why he is calling himself that,” said Janine. “But in public, with no children around to provide that context, it is often misconstrued as kinky flirting. Which again, is fine when Daddy is talking to Mommy, because Mommy and Daddy are sexual partners. But with other people it gets awkward and weird.”
Compounding the problem is the fact that, since he became a father, Brian has been much more likely to refer to himself in the third person.
“Oh yes, ten years ago, I’d for sure say ‘I’m here to pay this parking ticket,’ instead of ‘Daddy would like to fight this parking ticket,’” confirmed O’Shaughnessy. “In fact, these days I’m just as likely to say ‘Daddy’s been a bad boy, and needs a spanking.’ Daddy doesn’t know why Daddy says things like this. Daddy doesn’t even believe in corporal punishment. It just comes out of Daddy’s mouth that way. It makes Daddy sad and mad that this happens.”
At press time, Daddy was telling a Rogers employee that if they had better replace his broken phone by the time he counted to ten. Daddy did not know what would happen when he got to ten.
