Mystery at the Mall

Back on Christmas Eve, after we took the photo of Santa (see "Girls' Second Christmas"), we stuck around the mall to let the girls run around a bit and relax from the horror of meeting St. Nick.

While following Caroline as she wandered around the front of the Nordstrom Cafe, I came upon this scene:

It is was a table in which no one was sitting. On the table, however, were the following items:

• A large M&M cookie with one small bite taken out of it.
• A child's cup of milk, still completely full.
• A glass of ice water with the ice cubes still unmelted.
• Six napkins in various states of use.

Caroline stayed in the area for over 20 minutes, and no one returned to the table. No one cleared the table, presumably because they were waiting for someone to come back. After all, no one abandons a perfectly good (and expensive) Nordstrom Cafe cookie, milk, and water for no good reason.

As we finally left the area, I took the above photo, and forgot about it until downloading images from my camera into my computer this evening.

I took the photo, because I was curious: What happened to the people at this table?

A few conclusions that I've deduced from the photo:

1. There was a child sitting at the table, as evidenced from the child's cup of milk.
2. The child most likely was eating the cookie, as evidenced from the small bite taken out of the cookie.
3. There was only one parent with the child, as evidenced from the fact that only two chairs were set around the table.
4. The child and parent had just sat down when they left in a great hurry, not even bothering to take the cookie or their drinks, as evidenced from the fact that the child only managed to take one small bite of the cookie, and drank almost none of the milk.
5. The child and parent had left just minutes before Caroline and I wandered by, as evidenced from the ice still in the cup of water.

However, as to what actually happened, I have no clue. However, as a parent of twins, I was able to come up with a few theories:

1. The child threw the mother-of-all-temper-tantrums, causing the parent to pull the child out of the mall in a great hurry, without taking the expensive snack and drinks.
2. The child's nose started to bleed, requiring the parent to rush the child to the bathroom. There, they either left for home, or it took over 20 minutes to stop the bleeding, at which point the parent thought their snack would have been tossed out, and they abandoned the snack without coming back.
3. The child wet/pooped in his/her pants, requiring a hasty exit from the mall, again abandoning aforementioned snacks.
4. The other parent found child and parent at the table, and had found an incredible deal on overstocked beef sticks at the Hickory Farms wagon, and the family rushed off to buy them, abandoning the cookie and drinks.
5. The child and parent walked into a nearby store just for a minute, fully meaning to come back to their table. However, when they returned, a strange man was taking a picture of their cookie and drinks, and so they ran off to report him to security. When they returned, he was gone!

We'll never know why that poor cookie, milk, and water were abandoned. But feel free to leave a creative comment on what you think happened.