"Oh, no! What did you just say?!" his mother asked--half question, half frustration. What had he said? He couldn't remember. Only a minute had passed, a mere sixty seconds, but there was an interruption--the waitress had asked if they were ready to order, but he had forgotten what he was saying. Just as well. His mother was not happy with him. What had he said or done wrong now? It seemed that his behavior--every single thing he did--was an irritant.
"Please! Look at the menu! The waitress will be back in a minute, and she's going to ask what you want to eat," she said as she looked at her watch. Her schedule was chockablock full, and she had taken time away from her busy life to pick him up from kindergarten to take him to lunch. The least he could do, she thought, was appreciate her sacrifice on his behalf and focus on the task at hand. Wait! Wait! Now he remembered what it was he had been talking about earlier, so he put the menu down and started the story where he had left off, but then the waitress was back, and his mother was frowning, and he had to pick the menu back up again.
"Just pick something! It's not that difficult." But it was that difficult because he had been so excited to hear that his mother was stopping by his school to take him to lunch, he couldn't focus. Plus he couldn't read that well either; picking something from the menu would be impossible, so he did what his five-year-old brain told him to do: He got out of his chair, ran across the room to where a young boy about his age, wearing a very large cowboy hat, sat, eating a chocolate sundae. He told the boy he liked his hat to which the boy replied it was his dad's hat, but the conversation ended there when the mother escorted her son back to his chair and told him to stay put and tell the waitress what he wanted to eat.
"No! You cannot have what that boy in the cowboy hat is having! You must eat real food before dessert!"
"Oh, my goodness! What did you just say?!" her son said--half question, half frustration. What had she said? She couldn't remember. Only a minute had passed, a mere sixty seconds, but there was an interruption--the waitress had asked if they were ready to order, but she had forgotten what she was saying. Just as well. He was not happy with her. What had she said or done wrong now? It seemed that her behavior--every single thing she did--was an irritant.
"Mother! Please! Look at the menu! The waitress will be back in a minute, and she's going to ask what you want to eat," he said as he looked at his iPhone. His schedule was jammed-packed full, and he had taken time away from his busyness to pick her up from the nursing home to take her to lunch. The least she could do, he thought, was appreciate his sacrifice on her behalf and focus on the task at hand. Oh, Wait! Got it! Now she remembered what it was she had been talking about earlier, so she put the menu down and started the story where she had left off, but then the waitress was back, and her son was frowning, and she had to pick the menu back up again.
"Just pick something, Mother! It's not that difficult." But it was that difficult because she had been so excited to hear that her son was stopping by to take her to lunch, she couldn't focus. And in the confusion of getting ready to go, she'd forgotten her reading glasses; picking something from the menu would be impossible, so she did what her eighty-five-year-old brain told her to do: She got out of her chair, walked across the room to where an older, heavy-set lady, wearing a large-brim bright orange hat, sat, eating a humongous banana split. She told the lady she liked her hat, but the lady thought she said she liked her cat to which she replied she didn't have a cat, but the son's mother thought the lady in the hat had called her an old bat and things went down hill from there...until the conversation came to an abrupt stop when the son escorted his mother back to her chair and told her to stay put and tell the waitress what she wanted to eat.
"No! You cannot have what that nasty old hag in the orange hat is having! You're not a five-year-old, Mother. You must eat real food before dessert!"
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