Napkins are a boy's best friend

Children see me coming. I have no other explanation. My predisposition to dislike howler monkeys is well known - and apparently I have some sort of magnetic attraction to the two-foot-tall, screaming, germ-carrier, miniature versions of the badly behaved parental units. They flock to my places where my sanity skates on a knife edge.

Today was one of those days. I had a smashing headache, chiefly because I hadn't eaten in something like 18 hours (mostly my fault) and meetings and urgent phone calls kept getting in the way. So I hit the Starbucks with about 35 minutes to get food, a beverage and catch my breath before the next round of insanity.

Bad enough that there's no pasta salad in the cold case (I settled for a very dry turkey sandwich), I sit down to eat and a demon from the depths of nursery school starts up. OH KALI, THIS TABLE IS SQEAKING FIT TO RAISE THE DEAD. I OBVIOUSLY RAN OVER SOMEONE TODAY AND AM BEING PUNISHED.

OK. Child. I'm eating and I hear this *noise* emanating from the corner. It is a little boy, around 3-ish. Overalls (probably GAP), cute shirt and some leather sandals. Expensively dressed. Daddy is lolling in the corner, browsing the iPhone and smiling indulgently.

The child gets louder and from somewhere produces a toy truck, which he proceeds to wave around in the style of a magic wand - ZAP, ZAP, ZAP - except the ZAPs are accomplished by shrieks more like EEEEEKS. Then, Junior decides to come out of the corner near where Daddy Dearest is staying and cohabitate with the rest of the noonday Starbucks crowd.

What's his target you ask?

The napkin dispensers! Which happen to have been freshly stocked by one of those impossibly tall, impossibly skinny latte dispensers named Bianca or Margarethe or Nadia or Anastasia - never Mary or Jennifer or Sue. You know the type. She's a size 0 and would look equally at home serving coffee in a cafe on the Champs-Elysees as slinging venti mochas in a Starbucks in Peoria.

So Junior happens to catch the condiment bar unguarded - surely the stuff his chubby two-fisted dreams are made of - and decides to dig in with both hands. I can almost picture the carnage as he reaches up. Napkins will fly like fur in a catfight. One after the other in a recycled brown rain. It will be a thing of beauty.

Daddy ruins this perfect vision of chubby fury unleashed and swoops in to capture the recalcitrant child as the brat is climbing on the trash can - seriously - do you KNOW what's been going on in that thing - and tugs him back off to the corner before turning him loose again.

Daddy Dearest it appears, has a business meeting - as some older man in slacks and a nice collared polo (obviously retired) swans in looking hale and hearty.

They exchange business cards.

Daddy makes another run to rescue Junior from a standing display of bagged coffee.

The businessmen shake hands.

Junior makes a move toward a stand full of coffee mugs.

Daddy deftly intervenes and blocks the pudgy plonkers with well-timed pat on the head.

Junior pelts for freedom across the lobby - and a certain date between his head and the edge of a table - and quite possibly the passing chance to acquire a bit of familiarity with a lick of sense - and the elder gentleman intervenes. Sadly, it seems this little one is destined to live long and prosper and be protected.

He, like information, wants to be free.

Daddy denies him time and again - and keeps up a pretty good conversation with the old dude. Obviously, he's used to hauling the little plonker around all the time.

Which raises the question - WHO TAKES A KID TO A BUSINESS MEETING?

Seriously. There are so many unanswered questions there - namely that you're doing business in a Starbucks while babysitting your child. I'm not judging, but I really do wish you'd investigate giving the kid a bit more home training. At least teach him to sit a bit more quietly and play with toys - even if your circumstances don't permit a babysitter.