Colorful Times

My wife had a couple of interesting experiences today.

She's working as one of the volunteer parents at the local Color Guard's Home Show. Her responsibilities range from selling flowers to taking money at the door to pretty much whatever needs to be done. At one point, she was standing, talking with another volunteer mother, when they saw the woman's daughter, who is my daughter's age, standing about five feet from them. The girl was standing with one of the local boys, but couldn't see her mother. As they continued talking, she noticed her daughter reach up and ruffle the boy's hair, and kiss him on the cheek. My wife turned to the other woman and said 'Did that surprise you?' The other mother said that she 'knew they were an item', but not that they had moved into public displays of affection. At that point, the girl turned, saw her mother, and walked quickly past her. Upon hearing this, I told my wife that I bet there was an interesting conversation in that house, tonight. And no, it's not one we're prepared to have. That's usually when I turn to my wife and murmur that there's a lot to be said for lesbianism.

Later, my wife realized that she'd left her purse in the ladies room. She retrieved it - wallet, yup, credit cards, yup, cash -- completely gone. Even the change. We talked about whether she should cancel the cards, and decided not to; she can refuse any charges that aren't hers, and cancel the card then, if need be. But still: there's this feeling of violation. It's happened to her twice before -- once in a local store, and once in a restaurant in Boston. Both other times her wallet was flat-out stolen. Purses are dangerous things.

Ironically, our daughter later said that she needed some money to buy food (this from the kid who'd gotten her allowance today), and when my wife said 'But you know that my cash was stolen', immediately replied 'But I'm hungry!'

Ah, yes.