Sesame Street live?

Friday night at the mall (a big, late-night-out for us), we stopped at the food court to get something to eat. Figuring it would be fast and at least marginally healthy, we got in line to order from Chick-fil-A. Seated at a table near the end of the line was a woman I can best (and most charitably) describe as a less attractive Don King doppelganger. With orange hair. And I mean orange.

Samson, who was in my arms at this point, looked around the court at the hordes of Friday night mallgoers, which for some reason included an entire division, it seemed, of newly minted Marines. I appreciate what these guys go through and what they do, but they look far less impressive out of the dress blues. Particularly when they are walking around with Abercrombie & Fitch bags and drinking frozen Starbucks' drinks. But I digress.

Young Samson looked at the woman near us, pointed, and said quite clearly, although if she heard us she gave no indication, "EL-MO, EL-MO." If you've ever tried to recover from something your child has said, or even something you've said, you know that certain words can be covered up. "Elmo" is not one of them.

I briefly considered saying something like "No, Samson, this is the food court. The Alamo is in the beautiful city of San Antonio."

But that would just have been ridiculous.

Since she pretended not to hear it, I pretended Samson didn't say it and took him looking for a high-chair and an empty table. We sat next to half of Bravo company as they slouched in their chairs, ate waffle fries, fiddled with their cell phones, and (probably) regretted not wearing their dress uniforms out.