"Man, that is a terrible baby." "What?" Mary put a protective hand on her infant's stroller. "Why would you say that?"

"I mean, look at it." The wrinkled, balding man gestured. "It's just lying there, sleeping, doing nothing."

"That's what babies do!"

"Yeah? A minute ago I was on the other side of the park, and there was this baby there, and wow. I mean, it was grabbing things, and, and kind of hitting stuff. It put at least three things in its mouth in the time I took to walk past. Now that's a baby that's going places."

"That baby could've been months older than mine. Babies learn to do new things every day at this age. Besides—"

"Nah, that was just a good baby. Not like yours."

"Besides," Mary repeated with force, "you just walked up! You have no idea what my baby was doing a few minutes ago."

"That's not my fault. Babies have to put their best feet forward if they want to get any traction, you know? We only get one first impression."

"Well, yours is terrible!" Mary stood up and stormed off with her stroller.

"Ahhh," said the man, sitting down. "My favorite bench."