Yesterday I made a major breakthrough in my 50 year old life. I had reserved a table for 2 at Fred's for lunch at 12:15 (because they couldn't accommodate me at 12:30 for whatever reason) and when I met my friend there she said her 15 year old daughter would be joining us shortly.

I told the hostess we would now be three, she said fine. The maitre d' with a Napoleon complex looked at me through his dark, beady eyes and salt and pepper hair and curtly said, "Where is your third?" I replied,

"She is on her way, she'll be here shortly." He gave me that sneering look and said "I will seat you when she arrives." As you can imagine at 12:15 maybe a quarter of the tables were filled. Although I've been out of the record business for 8 years, the hidden side of dealing with aberrant behavior emerged and I returned his snarly look and said "Don't do that. Don't pull that on us, just give us a table now." He was shocked, he stood there, tried to respond, and not giving him a second, I said, "Come on you're being ridiculous, seat us NOW!" He complied and wished us a good lunch. I felt I had triumphed over the imagined power that these people hold over us and my friend, her daughter and I had a most enjoyable and long lunch.