I had had a really bad day at work and was in a foul mood. I had to leave a few minutes early because my husband was out of town and I had to get my children (perhaps 8 and 11 at the time) to two different activities that were far apart. My daughter had a half-hour lesson almost right away, but my son was going to be at ball practice for three hours and needed to eat beforehand. The solution was McDonald’s.

There was a birthday party for very young children in a separate, but not enclosed area and our only choice was to sit near it. The party was noisy in a “kids are having fun” way and not in a “kids are being wild” way. I was actually starting to feel better listening to the chatter of younger children and thinking of my own children’s parties when two older women sat immediately behind us and started complaining about all the commotion. They were loud and mean. My mood went right back to sour.

Just as I was about to turn around and say, “If you don’t like to dine next to a children’s birthday party, don’t come to McDonald’s at 5:15,” my daughter announced that she had finally gotten to start dissecting her lizard that day. The vocalization behind us was somewhere between a gasp and choking. As an interested parent, I started asking my daughter questions about the dissection and her younger brother had several graphic questions of his own. My daughter was pleased to tell us everything she knew. Of course, the women turned their complaining away from the party and to us, but we were oblivious to the inappropriateness of our dinner topic. (I think the kids really were.)

It was too bad that we couldn’t stay until we drove THEM away, but we had to appointments to make. As we left, I smiled at them and said I hoped they would have a nice evening. And I laughed to myself every time I thought of how they had inadvertently lifted my mood. I do wonder if they ever ate at McDonald’s again.