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My Weekend

 You can sense the depth of another person's mental illness by the way she talks to children.


For example, I took my daughter to a party on Saturday. She found a large red toy animal and shouted, "Elmo! Elmo!"

A weary woman, sitting criss-cross applesauce, said, quickly, "That's NOT Elmo." Then she directed a withering gaze at her own child, a three-year-old, and asked, "Must you throw ALL the sofa cushions on the floor?"

My daughter didn't know how to cope with all of this, so she took my seltzer and spilled its contents all over the foam pieces of a "child-friendly puzzle."

I'm not sure why I continue to say "yes" to all of these birthday parties.
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