Yesterday, I walked into the warm, wood-paneled Elliott Bay bookstore behind two women. One was wearing a sweatshirt and probably in her middle-late 40s. The other was older, with short, white hair and a sweater. Younger looked a little dim in the eyes. Older looked sharper, more awake, maybe a mother who wasn't particularly jazzed to be hanging out with her daughter.

The daughter [wistfully]: You know... I'd like to go back to the Louvre.

The mother [mildly irritated]: Well, DUH! Who wouldn't?!

My favorite (imagined) thing about the exchange—the daughter was saying a fatuous thing loudly, presumably so people within earshot would know she had already been to the Louvre. It was a middle-aged and middle-class version of announcing: "I'm a big girl!" The mother was irritated because her daughter never got past the developmental stage of a child has to announce she's a big girl, has to perform for strangers—strangers who don't care whether she's been to the Louvre.