witches at the pizza hut

pizza hut was hopping. now, for those of you who have been reading along from the early days, we've all been to the pizza hut in delhi before. but it's october right now and pizza hut is all sorts of fancied up for the season. at the back of the place, tables were cleared away for a ghoulish display featuring an inflated green faced witch and frankenstein monster. pumpkins, ghosts and other haunted things in the form of those trash bags most folks fill with leaves were strewn all over. the cobwebs strung all across the ceiling rival our own here at the house and the plastic spiders sprinkled through the cobwebs were the perfect touch. halloweenolicious. but it's not the decorations that caught our attention.

there were witches. live ones. small ones. the harry potter kind with cloaks and elegant hats and stripey scarves. little girls. they sat together on one side of the booth and the parents sat opposite. we were seated at the booth just past them, me sitting with my back to the little witches. they weren't loud, but as their heads were about two inches back from mine, it was easy to hear them. the girls were friends and the parents belonged to one of them. the child whose parents were there was saying, "well, i'd be a democrat." i'm not sure what the question was but it was an interesting answer for a child young enough to wear a witch costume out to a pizza hut a week before halloween. "and then i'd be president," she continued. this seemed to be causal for her. first, you're a democrat, then you're president. that's how it happens. she's too young to have seen that happen in her lifetime so i'm not sure where she gets her information but she seemed very sure about it. there is more conversation along presidential lines and the mother asks a question. i wonder if they have some sort of presidential place mat or something. maybe one of those books of questions like the other pizza hut children had. because they are focused on presidents and things presidential.

there is discussion of presidential pets. the sweetie asks me what pets i'd have in the white house. dachshunds, i say, worried that he'd even have to ask. "what if we are at war with germany?" he asks. "you can't have dachshunds then," he smiles, sure he's won some point i didn't even know was up for grabs. "our dogs were born here," i explain, taking this very seriously, "they're not german dogs." "yeah, but they're german dogs, german ancestry," he insists. sometimes he just refuses to see the point. "i think it would work out fine," i tell him, not willing to spend any more time explaining a plan i'm not going to implement since i have no intentions of running for president anyway. besides, i'm not really concerned right now about germany so much. there are plenty of others in line to go to war with us. not me and the sweetie. we are not at war with much. maybe the weeds in the back yard. maybe squirrels. i am more worried about squirrels than i am about germany right now. germany is not trying to eat the walls of my house. besides, i'm not running the country. not at all.

but the children are still discussing their own presidential aspirations. the other girl has expressed interest in running for office as well. the mother asks a question i can't hear and the child is worried about her qualifications for office. she is not sure she is a citizen, it seems. the mother (not her mother, but the other child's) assures her that her parents are citizens and she is, too. she can run. the other child giggles, saying she could also run if she lived in this country at least 15 years, which she hasn't, because she hasn't even lived fifteen years. this cracks them up. there is some discussion on how old one must be to run for president. it is 35, they decide. they both have some time before they're qualified. me, i could run, i guess. i'm old enough.