A Thousand Times No

This morning, I went out for breakfast with a friend, her husband, and their two school-aged sons.  They all began constructing elaborate, carefully balanced structures on the diner tabletop with the silverware, the salt and pepper shakers, the tiny plastic jam packets, and everything other loose item available on the table.

Somewhere along the way, one of the boys declared, “Do you know what I need right now?  A spork!  An aluminum spork!”  (I am not making this up.)
Reader, you know how I like to be helpful to others.  So I reached into my infamous bag and produced… a folding titanium spork.  In an instant, I was indisputably the biggest dork at the table.

(For the record, I don’t carry a real live pony in my bag.  Even a titanium spork is no match for pony byproduct issues.)