Important

Yesterday I had lunch at a local cafe with a dear friend of ours, Auntie Marvellous. That's not her real name of course, and strictly speaking she's not Mars and Venus' Auntie, but she really is marvellous.

Anyway this cafe, it's nice, but it's not super nice. Main courses range in price from $15ish to $30ish, and it's been recently renovated, so it looks swanky and new.

As we were chatting and waiting for our food I observed over Auntie Marvellous' shoulder a couple eating their lunch. They were well dressed but not overdressed, chatting and eating quietly. Unremarkable.

Unremarkable until they had finished their glasses of wine. One would think that one or the other of them would pick up the half full wine bottle sitting on their table and refill their glasses. But no.

The man picked up the wine bottle and waved it at a waiter who was heading to the kitchen, and then he put it back on the table. The waiter came over and refilled their glasses, and left the bottle on the table.

Auntie Marvellous saw the somewhat horrified expression on my face, but couldn't see what was going on behind her. 

I thought it was just me thinking that the man was being quite rude. Surely your average person would fill their own glass in a cafe. I apologised to Auntie Marvellous for being so distracted and filled her in on what was going on. 

She agreed that it was kind of rude, considering where we were. In a posh restaurant where there are no prices on the menu I'd expect to see that kind of behaviour, but not there. It seemed especially rude given that he'd actually picked up the bottle to get someone's attention. It would have been faster just to pour his own drink while he had the bottle in his hand. 

Minutes later when those glasses were drained again the staff were all avoiding eye contact with this guy (or so I'm sure it seemed to him), so with a grumpy expression he picked that bottle up for the last time and drained what was left into their glasses. They finished their lunch, paid and left.

I'm no good at remembering clever quotes and things like that, but one thing I do remember is this: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

That man is probably lucky he didn't order a dessert, his waiter might have been tempted to spit in it.

Venus and the Tooth Fairy

During her second week of school Venus lost her first tooth. It had been wobbly for at least a week, and we knew it was just a matter of time before it was ready to come out.

As you would expect her teacher, obviously very experienced at dealing with a child who has just lost their first tooth without their parents in sight, did everything right. She gave Venus a tissue to bite on, as there was a small amount of blood on her gum. She took possession of the tooth and placed it in the centre of several tissues. She gathered the tissues up and bound them together with string to make the shape of a ghost with the tooth secured safely in the head. Then she drew a face on the ghost and gave it to Venus to give to us. I was most impressed.

Venus was already familiar with the idea of the Tooth Fairy, as she has seen Mars lose many teeth and receive money under his pillow in exchange for the tooth every time. That is to say, every time except once when Mars apparently swallowed the tooth (which, needless to say, was very traumatic), and the Tooth Fairy felt very sorry for him and left him money, even though he failed to produce the tooth.

So we carefully placed her toothy ghost under her pillow that night, and in the morning when she woke up the first thing she said was "Mum, can I look under my pillow?" I told her she could, and when she looked there was a shiny gold coin where her tooth had been.

She picked it up. 

"Look Mum! I've got some money!"

She was so excited. Then she took a closer look at it.

"Oh" she said in a slightly disappointed tone. "It's not made of chocolate."

The first thing that stupidly popped into my head was an image of Homer Simpson's brain explaining to Homer that "money can be exchanged for goods and services", but I didn't go there. I said nothing, because there's something precious about a time in your life when a chocolate coin is more exciting than a real one. Even if it is a whole two dollars.