Cat's In The Cradle And The Serendipitous Spoon

Here's something oddly poignant. I was stuffing my face in a restaurant recently. At a table near mine, there was a father and his young son enjoying the afternoon. The boy was coloring his place mat with crayons while his dad stared intently at his Blackberry.

At some point, the kid tried to get his father's attention so he could show him what he'd drawn...and the guy just wouldn't look up from his phone no matter what the boy did. He was just totally stonewalling this poor kid.

Eerily, the restaurant's p.a. system (which had been playing some 80s pop music) started playing Harry Chapin's Cat's In The Cradle -- that 70s tune about the distant father who ignores his son and eventually suffers poetic justice. It felt like all the planets were aligning. And they guy still wouldn't look up. Eerie, right? -v