Terms of Endearment

I was just thinking how comfortable it makes me when people refer to their loved ones as "the boy" or "the man", or "girl." Let's call this phenomenon a practice of minimalist terms of endearment. It's like that person is so important in your life that you don't even need a name for everyone to know who you're talking about. We had this in my household growing up, except it also filtered down to objects and areas. We had, "the drawer," which always meant the top drawer second from the right on the right of the island, because it was THE drawer, the catch-all, containing everything from paper clips, to my dad's passport, car keys, an pieces of Dove chocolate. (Later, it must be noted, we created a drawer exclusively for chocolate. We also called that "the drawer.") We also had "the house" or "next door" which referred of course to the house across the stream on the other half of our acre and a half of property. Ok, makes sense, but it was highly entertaining when you're at someone else's house far away and still referring to your own house as "next door."
Terms of endearment, you know? They're awesome.