On behalf of our food, we apologize

On our recent trip to the beach we were surrounded by many great bastions of American cuisine -- Pizza Tommy's, Pancakes & Slushies, Dairy Queen, etc. With so many excellent establishments to frequent, it was difficult to decide where to take our patronage. One day we chose to dine for lunch at Dairy Queen. It was a small DQ, serving ice cream only. Perfect lunch food, we agreed.

While we waited for our Blizzards, a French family of four next to us decided what to order. The mother asked for vanilla ice cream with chocolate, and immediately faced a barrage of questions:

In a bowl? In a cup? What size? Chocolate sauce or hot fudge syrup? Nuts? Cherry? Any other artery-clogging toppings?

I thought about the barrage of questions WE might face, the Hero and I, were we in France ordering food.

Fresh cream with that? Fleur de sel?

And I wanted to apologize to the family.

When the older boy's chocolate sundae was handed through the window, the mother looked exasperated. The ice cream was perched precariously in the bowl, a mile high and struggling to stay upright under the mountain of fudge atop it. She asked if there was a lid, to which she received a negative answer, and she reluctantly handed it to her young son.

"I think we should apologize to them," I announced solemnly to the Hero once we had sat down with out Blizzards.

"What for?" he said, devouring his Strawberry Shortcake.

"For what passes as food in this country," I said. "I'm embarrassed. They have all that wonderful French food, and we have -- " I swept my hand toward our ice cream that contained, possibly, .37% actual food.

The Hero eyed his rapidly disappearing strawberry shortcake. "You're embarrassed by this wonderful concoction of yumminess?" he said incredulously. "Don't the French have DQ?" He looked sorry for them.

"If they do, it's our fault," I said.

Here we were interrupted by the sight of the chocolate sundae falling out of the boy's grasp and landing upside down on the ground. The parents had not noticed, and the boy tried frantically to be somewhere else -- anywhere else -- before they did.

"He's done this before," the Hero commented. "He knows the drill."

When finally the father saw the demolished ice cream, he let out, in English, a series of "Aw, come on's!"

"Definitely the kid's done this before," the Hero said. "Maybe they DO have DQ in France."

The poor child whined, in French, as the father, in English, steadfastly maintained that the boy would NOT get a replacement, and would have to share with his brother. The brother began to whine.

"When kids whine in a foreign language it sounds so much more elegant than in English," the Hero remarked.

The mother said something in French, which I assumed was something like "You're better off without that junk anyway."

"I'm sorry about his ice cream," I said to the Hero. "But she's right. He should stick to French food. Someday his arteries will thank him."