Lessons at the snack table

1. If you offer to be one of two people bringing snacks to a gathering about about 100 people, don't bring 2 dozen big, lovely, cookies, even if there are 12 each of two different flavors, because only about a quarter of the people will get the opportunity to sample those lovely cookies - maybe fewer, if the kids get to the snack table first (and they always do) and have been trained that it's OK to take one of each. Remember that the other person bringing snacks could do the same thing, and you'd have 48 gorgeous cookies, and 100 people brawling over them.

The kids reported that the cookies were delicious.

2. If you have children, teach them to assume that what is on the snack table when they arrive is all that will be available all day long, for all the people at the event, including those who are still chatting in the seats and those who are old, slow, or otherwise not able to beat them to the food. And that no matter how good those big cookies look, and how many kinds there are, they may take only one. Not one of each. (They could always plan to check back after everyone else has had a crack at the cookies.) They should not assume that everyone is like their own mother, who always holds some back to replenish later, after the first flurry of children has gone. You do, or your mother does that, right?

3. Don't smile indulgently at your child as he or she fills his plate with one, two, or more of everything. Someone is going to find that plate in another room, mostly full of food with one bite out of it. Or smeared into the floor.

4. If you want to allow food fights in your house, have at it. Teach your children the difference between home and other places.

I think I am still in the bad mood created this morning by my stupid clock.