All this brouhaha over the
owner of a Maine diner yelling at a screaming kid. You want to know what? Rude kids are everywhere. Rude people are everywhere. Disturbing sights are the hybrid of this
dilemma.
Take tonight, for example.
My friend invites me out
to dinner with her friend/sister-in-law.
The three of us are teachers at different grade levels (elementary,
middle, and high school) in different towns/cities. The restaurant is practically empty when we
arrive, so we get a table quickly.
Maybe too quickly. We forget the caveat of “Not anywhere near
children.”
Before you go booing me, you
should know that I generally like kids, which is good since I’m with them all
bloody day long, day in and day out. Since
I am with kids all bloody day long, day in and day out, I sometimes like to have
a little break from them when I am out at a restaurant.
Once we are seated in a
booth, families quickly surround us. Toddlers,
elementary school kids, middle school-ers, and their parents stream in from
every possible side. I almost ask to be
moved. I can feel myself getting
twitchy. Look, people, I SWEAR. Do you understand? When I am on my own time, I have a foul mouth
and I swear like a drunken sailor on a week-long bender. Being away from your children is probably the
greatest gift I can give to you and your loved ones. I attempt to stop the hostess but hesitate.
Seriously.
It’s dinner. How bad can it be? After all, the kids haven’t made much noise,
not even the toddler in the booth kitty-corner to where we are sitting. This can’t be that bad, right? And, to be
truthful, it isn’t that bad.
Until.
(There is always an “until”
in stories such as this.)
Until the twelve-(or so)-year-old
boy in the booth next to us stands up in the aisle, reaches his hands down, and
grabs his penis through his nylon shorts.
Say … dude … really?
I quickly avert my eyes
because as a teacher and parent and woman and human being, there simply are
some things I don’t need to see, and a kid publically adjusting himself without
benefit of a sports uniform is downright disturbing to me. But -- (If there is an “until,” there should
probably be a “but”) – But, it is not a screaming child. Okay, okay, go ahead and boo me. I don’t believe children should scream,
screech, or throw tantrums inside restaurants or other public venues if there
is an adult available (preferably their own adult) to remove the child from the
premises.
Other than the
crotch-grab, dinner is uneventful, which is highly unusual for me since weird
shit happens to me pretty much 24/7. Must
be a hybrid evening: kind of strange and kind of entertaining in a PG-13 way.
