the old man and the seat

Lunch break turns out to be amusing if not a wee bit insulting today. In one of a mall’s many fast food restaurants, a mother with her two-or-three-year-old daughter approach a waitress just across my table, asking her for one of those child-safe high plastic chairs. The woman then takes the special seat and sets it to my table, right next to me. I stare at her, a spoonful of rice midway to my open mouth. The mother corrects the waitress that she sits farther in the corner, so she immediately moves the chair to the directed spot. The aforementioned mother appears to be in her late thirties.

Such incident begs the questions: Do I really look that old? Is there hope to be a family man? Does this finally break the curse of being mistaken as a woman? Or is the waitress just pulling my leg? Whatever the answers are, that is just indisputably crazy. At least it is a funny way to start my week.