A Moment of Silence

I was in church on Saturday evening and found myself completely distracted throughout the entire Mass. There was a teenage girl and her mother 2 rows in front of me. The girl clearly had a cold because she was sniffling and coughing. For a semi-germaphone like me, that was enough distraction. Then she put her feet up on the pew in front of her. She proceeded to take out a drink and a snack. Like she was at a soccer game or something. Next she placed a folder in her lap and began writing down what her mother told her as "thought"s or "general lessons" from the sermon. Are you kidding me? The girl must be taking a CCD class and had some homework to do. Uhm, it's called homework for a reason!!! And why is the mother telling her what to write down? Maybe because the girl's clearly not listening to the sermon herself what with all the drinking, eating and coughing. I literally spent the hour praying for God to give me strength to keep my mouth shut. I wanted to smack the girl in the back of the head and tell the mother a thing or two about respect. Do you see anyone else eating or putting their feet up?? Other children doing their homework? I blame the mother but still wanted to smack the daughter. I couldn't think of a tactful way to tell them what I thought of this behavior. No matter what I would have said or how I would have said it, one or both of them would have had some snippy remark and that would have been the end of that. I don't respond well to snippy remarks. Thankfully the Lord provided me with a mouth full of silence. But my weekly precious hour of reflection and prayer with no misbehaving children of my own was lost on this girl.