Sometimes Bad Moods Happen, OK?

On the way home from work the other day, two little boys and their mother got on the bus. From the moment they appeared, I was absolutely captivated. Not even the mother’s horrible choice of black flower flip-flop footwear could turn my attention away.

One boy was wearing a navy blue batman sweat suit with matching batman sneakers. He was carrying a small plastic cookie monster and the most adorable dimples appeared as he smiled and babbled happily to himself. A real, live cabbage patch kid.

“Cookie monster has no hair,” he said definitively.
“I don’t know about that John,” his mother said. “Isn’t Cookie monster covered with hair?”
“No.”

His moodier brother was wearing shorts, a yellow coat, a red cap and superman sneakers. He sat sullenly next to his mother who literally kept poking at him.

“Why are you in a bad mood Alex? (poke) I hate it when you’re in a bad mood.”(poke)

Maybe it’s because you won’t stop poking him woman! I could see his frustration, indefinable with words but recognizable in the tears coating his eyes.

I hear you Alex. I hear you.