TIFU by telling a stranger their baby was a potato

So this morning I stopped for coffee before work, still half asleep and running on pure delusion. While I’m waiting for my drink, I notice a woman next to me holding a very small, very bundled up baby. I’m normally great with kids, (I have three myself) so I decide to be friendly.

I lean over, smile, and say, “Aww, what a cute little potato!”

She stares at me like I’ve just insulted three generations of her family.

So I try to clarify. BIG mistake.

I go: “No! Not like a bad potato. Like a GOOD potato. A adorable potato. Like… a premium one?”

The barista is choking trying not to laugh. The mom is looking at me like I’m describing her child as produce in a USDA inspection.

At this point I’m overheating like a laptop in a blanket, so I grab my coffee to flee. Except…it’s not my coffee. It’s HER coffee. She says, “That’s mine,” in the rudest voice I’ve ever heard.

I apologize, put it back, and in my panic I try to “lighten the mood.” So I say:

“Sorry. I swear I’m not usually this weird.”

Why did I say that. Why did I bring attention to the weirdness. Why am I alive.

The barista finally calls my drink loudly, like she’s announcing a fugitive and I waddle out of there clutching it like a shame trophy.

Anyway, somewhere out there is a woman who thinks I compared her baby to a starchy root vegetable and tried to steal her latte

*I called my mom when I got in my car, she calls babies “potatoes” too. Is that not basically all they are at that point?????

TL;DR: Called a stranger’s baby a “cute little potato,” panicked while trying to clarify, accidentally grabbed her coffee, and now a mother thinks I’m a baby insulting coffee thief.