I know you were thinking you were a cool, compassionate man, sitting there with your coworkers and your cool tags,enjoying your business lunch, sipping on Diet Coke.  Hey, I would have even toasted your choice of beverage –mine too!– as the choice for us eternal dieter types.

Except that you wouldn't stop staring at me.  Or, more specifically, at Don Meow.

________

For those of you who haven't recently scraped extraneous child-related goop from your clothes, allow me to fill you in on something: teeth, for all their food-chopping and tag-removal virtue are quite a pain in the ass when they are erupting out of the gums of your seven-month old.  My seven-month old, who is quite the drooler and I am beginning to suspect has been actually teething since the day he was born –either that or he is quite dramatic in all his elocutions–  has been exceedingly cranky on account of his lower right incisor starting to strain those precious velvety pink gums.

The poor little sweetie.  One moment he's happy as can be, and the next he is like a rabid dog, shoving anything he can into his painful maw and biting down to make the pain go away.

And this was what you were witnessing, sir.

Not that I could have conveyed any of this with my eyes or my mind, really, as I was far too busy shushing the kid and shoving anything I could into his mouth to prevent him as much as possible from hollering anymore. 

But then you'd look at me, even as I busily tried to hide behind the miserable baby.  And you'd keep looking at me, making me uncomfortable with that vague expression of contemptuous pity that you shone my way like an unwanted beacon.

Don't do that.