There was some discussion on Facebook the other day about people letting their children run wild in restaurants, which is dangerous for the kids who might be tripped over by big people carrying trays of hot food, and so annoying to other diners that they may be secretly hoping for those trays of hot food to crash down on the little darlings' heads.
I want to go on record that I have never let my children or grandchildren run around and terrorize the waiters or diners in a restaurant. We did it sitting down.
Remember Furr's Cafeteria? It was one of our favorites when my boys were growing up. You know you will probably not find starched tablecloths on the tables when there are high chairs on wheels at the entrance, so it would seem to be an appropriate place to take children. But high chairs don't contain everything, now do they? Like the time two-year-old Jake, having finished eating his ear of corn, and wanting a neat tray, of course, tossed the cob over his shoulder (No, that's not the way we did it at home!) and it landed in the plate of the lady sitting three booths over. (He was always an athletic kid) Or when he spotted Dennis leaving the restroom there and yelled at the top of his lungs across the room, "Did you go potty, Daddy?" But he wasn't running around endangering wait staff when he did those things.
Of course, McDonalds is the quintessential kids' place to eat, but in the past they did not have playgrounds in them. Once when the kids were a little older and we were visiting friends in California, we stopped at a McDonalds and let them sit at a booth by themselves while we talked. It's possible that my friend, Darlene and I were enjoying ourselves a little too long and were too absorbed with catching up on each other's lives. And it's possible that when we heard some ladies in another booth speaking in the authoritative tone of the childless everywhere, "If I ever have children they will never act like brats in a restaurant, you can be sure of that!", it may have been directed specifically at us even though they were the ones not using their indoor voices. The kids were being quiet, which should have been the clue, of course.
We looked toward the booth where are children were ensconced only to be amazed at the sight of a giant replica of the St. Louis Gateway Arch fashioned from soda straws rising toward the ceiling, reaching from their booth to the soft drink dispenser on the other side of the room. It was actually quite a marvelous feat of engineering and though our hearts swelled with pride it was obviously time to take our burgeoning architects out of there.
We waited till the busybodies, excuse me, concerned citizens, left and then we tried to sneak, unnoticed, out to our car. We thought that the kids seemed to be suitably chastised. That is until we were walking behind them in the parking lot and noticed that the back pockets of each of their jeans sported a wad of straws the size of a Duraflame log. I don't know what else they were planning to build but we made them take them back.
We've never actually been so annoying that other people got up and left. Okay, there was that one time we were all on one of our road trips to St. Louis. The children were totally grown! You would think you wouldn't have that much to worry about. However, someone in the group, I believe it was Dennis, in fact, the patriarch who should have been setting the example, who was stacking those little cream containers one on top of the other, higher and higher, the kids all cheering him on, to a height never before achieved. All of a sudden someone, who it was remains a mystery, flipped the bottom carton and one sailed up, up, up into the air and plopped into the plate of some innocent travelers who were trying to enjoy their lunch across the room. I don't think it was even the flying missile that made them get up and change tables. It was more likely the ear-splitting, falling out of the chair laughter, so loud that it precluded conversation by anyone within close proximity, that did the deed. We didn't ask.
Jake's children, of course, are much better behaved than he was. Except for the things he himself is teaching them. He didn't learn it from me but he can shoot the paper off a straw quite a distance. That athleticism, you know. Like the time we were sitting in Braum's----we only do these things in kid-friendly places----when his daughter shot a straw paper like an arrow and it landed on the head of the man who was sitting behind us. And stayed. Black hair, white straw, lots of hairspray. We held our breath. We waited and waited for it to fall off. Should we mention it or not? Should we, and by we, I mean Jake, go over and apologize? The man was eating alone so there was no one to point it out to him. It stayed on his head. We watched it stay on his head. He finished his food. It was still on his head. Ah, but for the Oklahoma wind as he got up to leave, it may have still been on his head when he laid it on his pillow that night.
I'm beginning to think the drive-through window may be the best option for our family. We could have a whole meal with everyone buckled into their seats for safety. The safety of other diners, that is.
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