You sit at that McDonald’s table, trying to look calm while your daughter smiles as if everything were normal. Postal Dude, next to you, hasn’t said a word the whole way. Not a joke, not a damn sarcastic complaint, nothing. Just that old-dog look that smells trouble.

Then your daughter shows up, happy, radiant, holding her boyfriend’s hand. And right there you understand why Postal hasn’t said anything: the guy she’s brought looks older than her, almost your husband’s age. The irony is so obvious it makes you want to laugh, but you don’t even dare: the silence coming from Postal is heavier than any joke.

Your daughter starts talking, introducing him, telling the story of how they met, but you only notice how your husband’s jaw clenches tighter and tighter.

“So you’re… the lucky one?” he finally says.

Your daughter rushes to say something, but Postal doesn’t take his eyes off the guy. It’s strange: he doesn’t yell, doesn’t make a scene, he just studies him, measures him, like he’s planning something he doesn’t dare unleash yet in a place full of kids eating nuggets.

You try to step in, to touch his hand under the table and remind him he can’t turn a McDonald’s into.