Once upon a time, when my butt was about three inches higher and I loved Hanson more than anything on earth, I worked at a Hasty Market. For those of you who aren’t Ontarians, a Hasty Market is a convenience store with a small deli section. Anyway so there I was, all of sixteen and charged with the responsibility of selling cigarettes. It was a job I took very seriously. Once I got past the irony of the fact that I was responsible for deciding who could buy cigarettes when I myself wasn’t old enough to purchase them. While some teens would run amuck with this newfound smoky power, distributing cigarettes left, right and centre, I made a point of carding most people. Often, people got annoyed, and sometimes people said thank you. But I knew I had truly made a mistake when the person let out a joyous whoop and then made a happy show of handing over their I.D. In my defense what kind of forty year old wears coveralls and a bikini grocery shopping?

I digress. So two weekends ago the same sort of thing happened to me. Ish. I haven’t decided whether to be offended or very proud of my youthful looks. I’ll just tell the story and let you decide.

There I am, Saturday night walking into the swanky restaurant in the hotel where Carter* and his family are staying. Now I had spent the entire day playing with Carter. First we played a little in the hotel, then we went to an indoor fair, when he got hungry I took him to Tim Horton’s where I realized that I had to stop saying nonsense to him because now he actually acted on it. Finally after his nap, just before dinner we went in the pool together and I attempted to give him a swimming lesson. As we had spent the past two days running around nonstop this wasn’t happening.

So after all that I manage to get him dried off and changed into nice clothes for dinner. However as I was dressed for Carter’s enjoyment rather than for the fishing club’s that was also meeting at the restaurant, I may not have been appropriately attired. Nonetheless I put my lime green, monster t-shirt back on which clashed nicely with my rainbow socks and white sneakers. I did wear pants for the record but they weren’t terribly interesting.

Along with forgetting suitable dinner attire, I also forgot a brush, but seeing as my hair is curly no matter what happens to it, I didn’t worry too much about this fact. It just meant that my hair was a gnarled looking sort of curly rather than just curly.

Anyway back to the story, so into the upscale restaurant we march; my mother, Carter’s mother and Carter looking dapper and trendy, then me tailing behind in my fluorescent green, monster t-shirt with wet, gnarly hair.

So we order dinner and the little guy sits for the majority of the meal except for when the gigantic, floating fish/shark/Hindenburg thing bobs over to our table courtesy of the fishing club. But then Carter finishes his dinner and wants to go play. Seeing as my dinner companions don’t frequently run off in search of gigantic, floating fish/shark/Hindenburgs, I run after him so his Mom could eat.

So there the two of us are, crashing this fishing club’s belated Christmas party and trying to swat the floating fish/shark/Hindenburg out of the air. After a while I manage to convince Carter to come back to the table with me. This was when I was told that while we were gone the waiter had come over and politely inquired “Whether the children were finished?” and taken our plates.

I’m not sure whether this is a compliment or a damning statement about my wardrobe and life choices.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the fish/shark/Hindenburg fearing innocent.