Barely-three-year-old Zachary has eaten in more restaurants in his short time on Earth than I did before my twenty-first birthday. With two kids and two careers, we end up going out about twice a week. He knows all the ins and outs of eating in public, as he demonstrated to us last night at a Japanese steak place.

We had a nice meal and he ate well and enjoyed the hibachi cooking show immensely, but now our plates were empty, our drinks were drained, and without a word from any of us, it was clearly time to go; we just needed the waiter to come back and close the deal. Finally the host wanders over and asks if everything was to our liking, and whether there was anything he could bring us.

Zachary, who was working on a jigsaw puzzle spread out on the communal table, looks up at him and says, "Jutht the check, pleathe!"