“Get your *f-bomb* kid outta’ here!”
Modesty will not allow my editor to print the phrase 100% verbatim but I’m sure you get the idea. That phrase was fired at a woman in a line up at a west end Revelstoke eatery after she had allowed her satanic terror of a child to run madly around the establishment, releasing noises at a sound level that would shame a jet engine. Through this clinical and elongated display of bad temper, maniacal deportment and hell-spawned behavior, mommy stood there doing nothing, absolutely nothing.
The whole episode was witnessed by at least 30 people in the seating area and another 20 in the pick-up line. It happened at suppertime and was uttered by a usually happy-go-lucky, mild-mannered burgher from the Big Eddy. He’d had a harder-than-usual day at the mill and Beelzebub’s offspring was the last straw.
Cricket time! For a few moments you could hear a feather drop. You could feel that every patron wanted to give a standing ovation but remained conservatively silent. The woman left in a huff, with her demon.
Kids in restaurants; who needs ’em? WC Fields was once asked if he liked children. He replied, “Yes, fried.”
If I’m spending more than $15 a meal, I cannot abide, tolerate or accept children in the restaurant, unless, they are well behaved but so many aren’t. Don’t slap the brat, slap the parents. (Did I say that out loud?)
Why in the name of all that’s holy would you want to take your brood to a medium or upper scale restaurant? Kids don’t wait well. They want food “NOW” and you reinforce that behavior when you slap down the first piece of junk food you can find at home, just to shut them up. Children don’t care about the pre-dinner drink and appetizers that you want, that take 40 minutes.
Kids are messy eaters. Just look in a 10 ft. radius where they’ve been playing with their pasta. Is that what you want for the $150., or more, bill you’re going to get? Then there’s the embarrassment the little urchins cause you, unless you’re too stupid to be embarrassed? There seems to be lots of evidence to make that case.
So you’re going to take your progeny prat to a restaurant. (Please don’t do it in Revelstoke. Odds are our mill worker/protector won’t be there to guide you but here are a few tips to help you see the error of your little cherub’s ways. I stopped counting at 73, but the Internet has hundreds of sites on the topic from charging a child tax/tariff, to what to do when the owner or waiter asks you and your human hurricane to leave, to business ethics on how employees handle children in restaurants, to 5 reasons to ban disruptive children from restaurants.
I’m not even going to get into what emotional problems your kids may have other than to say, according to the web, the Number One excuse given by parents is, “Oh, he’s autistic.”
Maybe the old idea of no children in any establishment that serves alcohol wasn’t such a bad idea. Take them to McDonalds or A&W where they belong; no long waiting, bright colours, lots of other kids, messes expected and dealt with quickly, much less expense and they’ll love you for it because they’ve seen those places on TV.
Homage, again to WC Fields, “Children should neither be seen or heard from… ever again”.
Yours in social sarcasm,
Ms. Anne Throap
