“They’re just trying to group the customers together,” I said, trying to reassure myself more than anyone else.

“It’s not so much grouping as it is clumping!” my friend said.

I had to agree. We were packed in tight.

It’s never fun when the restaurant hostess leads you through a half-empty eatery with cozy booths and empty, quiet seating areas only to take you to the far back where absolutely everyone is crammed and the screaming babies are performing at their climactic best. I know the reason for doing so (that’s the server’s area and they don’t seat you where there’s not a server), but it’s really lousy.

It’s lousy, alright, particularly after a day of lifting and painting and climbing up ladders and down and onto counters and crawling around on knees and finding that, in the light of day, my knees are a kind of soft, squishy purple mass. His parents worked especially hard.

“My knees are like grape jelly,” I told my friend.

My friend is almost moved, though, and the paint job in his new house is very nice.

We were tired, all four of us.

The waitress was brand new, second day on the job, with English as her second language. The table with the screaming baby ended up waiting a long time, salads barely arriving before the cold food arrived, and the manager pretty much comping the whole lot.

It didn’t look good.

These are actually the moments I like, moments where even the simplest kindness can help to make someone’s day. The waitress was doing her best but I felt the pressure on her and we all tried to reassure her that she was doing fine.

The vein on the side of my friend’s head looked like it would burst. This was in timing with the screaming baby.

I wondered about the cleanup should that happen.

Red is an angry color.

I drew a cartoon on my paper napkin wrapper ring. I hated to see everyone so tired and frazzled, and now the long wait for the food and the shrieking baby with a table full of quasi-adults who could evidently reproduce but not know what to do with the offspring afterwards.

My friend provided the additional footage to the cartoon.