An Innocent Observation

   

    So.…there I was having some Sunday brunch and enjoying good company when I took a moment to take in my surroundings. I’m usually a very observant person, often fancying myself as an amateur sleuth, in the vein of Sherlock Holmes or Batman. I think paying attention to details is a great way to gather information…or, in this case, entertainment.

  

   Firstly there was the couple sitting to the side and across from my table. I felt for the woman as she had no idea her date wasn’t really into her and would likely rather be in a train wreck than have to sit there through dessert. As clear as his body language was to me, was as oblivious she was to the actual situation. So bubbly and full of excitement, if she were sitting down to a test…she would lose points for spelling her own name wrong. I had no interest in watching this drama unfold…and it wouldn’t get to the good part anyway until long after the meal was over and they were on their way.

  

   Next was the quartet…just entering the scene and being seated in the far corner. A man with three women. Call it the Curious George in me…but in what situation does one man go out with three women (three gorgeous women) and act like he is special to all of them? Maybe I watch too much television or just think wrongly, but none of them struck me as associating for business (clandestine or otherwise) and all of them struck me as happy. Perhaps it was just the guy in me to think what I was thinking…after all, they could have all been related and he was just the gentlemanly type.

   Anyway…after seating “his” women down, he went to pull out his own chair and couldn’t because a stroller was blocking the way. He quietly asked the man seated at the table next to him to move it…which brings me to my final and most perplexingly entertaining observation of that day.

  

   As the man moved the stroller to the other side of his own table, I took an inventory of the cast seated with him and could not identify anyone at the table in need of a stroller. I say “in need” because generally a stroller is used for someone of such an early age that they have not yet mastered the art of putting one foot in front of the other…or have not mastered it to such a degree as to be practical for traveling with others well versed in the technique.

      Here again was an opportunity to use my deductive reasoning…and I did. I settled on the youngest member of the party, a boy around the age of five or six. Perhaps I was too generous and he was really four…but I think his age was far less important than his actual ability. I say “ability” because the way this boy was jumping around with such precision and complexity, displaying agility bordering on superhuman…I dubbed him “Young Peter Parker.”

   As I watched this display worthy of Barnum and Bailey’s attention, I just could not bring myself to believe that the stroller was actually for him. What reasonable person would put Spider-Man in a stroller?

      When they concluded their meal, I was very eager to have my suspicions confirmed (even though there was no other deduction to be made) and felt elation and awe at seeing the father ask Young Peter Parker to take his seat…in the stroller. Umm…really? After he sat down and the stroller began moving backwards and the whining began about wanting to go forward, I was pretty sure I knew the dynamics involved (add another spoiled child to the world). I mean…if he really wanted to go forward he could have easily executed a triple front somersault landing without so much as a sound on his way to web up some imagined bad guy.

   I’ve heard of people keeping children in strollers too long….but when your child is more agile and coordinated than you are, perhaps it’s time to make him walk…even when that is a downgrade from what he normally does. Just saying…