Make it Memorable.

Many moons ago, when my youngest son Jase turned 11, I witnessed something that I occasionally think about years later.

As a part of his birthday celebration, Jase asked me to pick up Taco Bell and join him for lunch in the school cafeteria. (Whether that meal choice was a sign of my success or failure as a parent, I’ll let you decide.) I grabbed his lunch and headed to the school, I settled in among fifth grade boys who wanted to tell me all about their Minecraft strategies (I countered with Dig Dug stories), and I watched my son enjoy an otherwise normal birthday.

Until the Lunch Lady came.

You see, at Jase’s school back in the day, there was a Lunch Lady who dabbled as a memory-maker. I didn’t know this until that visit to the cafeteria. She had a microphone constructed out of a wad of aluminum foil, a list of kids’ birthdays, and an insatiable desire to put a smile on every kid’s face. So whether there was one birthday or 12 on any given day, the Lunch Lady was going to make sure every kid got a memory they didn’t soon forget.

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The cost to our local board of education? Zero dollars. The impact on a kid’s special day? Priceless.

Maybe you don’t have an aluminum foil mic or a cafeteria full of fifth graders or even a very un-Lunch Lady like singing voice (let’s acknowledge it: she’s got some pipes), but you have the power to make any experience memorable for your guests.

How will you wield that power this weekend?

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