As it happens Derek, Shannon, and LuLu are in town for a few days and we met up at Red Robin for dinner this evening.

We arrived at roughly the same time, and actually ended up meeting in the parking lot. We tottered towards the door, four adults and a one-year-old slow to reach the door and no match for a pair of late-thirtish guys a step ahead of us. The pair reached the hostess a few seconds ahead of us and, of course, requested a table for nine. We waited, stepped up, asked for a table for five.

A few moments later seven more people walk in behind us, and one of the thirty-somethings (now on his cell) waves at the newly arrived crowd. It must have been the rest of his party, right? I, of course, am standing there in restaurant limbo ignoring my surroundings for the most part when one of those seven newcomers, an elderly woman, taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’ve “been looked after yet.”

“Yeah,” I reply, and — thinking that two plus seven clearly equals nine — tell her that I’m sure that the hostess is looking after their table as well.

I hope you’re still following. It’s not a complex story. My mistake was that I thought she was one of the large party into whom we had stumbled the middle.

“No. No,” she insisted. “I don’t think so.”

I shrug. Whatever. And she continues towards the hostess. The hostess, much more adept at her job than I could ever be, informs the elderly woman that yes, actually, there IS in fact a table waiting for them. Just over here, if you please.

“You were right. You were right.” The woman shouts as she walks into the restaurant-proper, pointing back and waving, likely assuming that I possessed some paranormal ability or was one of her long lost grandchildren whom she had forgotten to send a birthday card in thirty years.

Coincidence, dumb luck, and not-paying-attention pay off once again — I just wish the prize wasn’t an old woman staring me down from across a noisy restaurant.