my husband and i are both working from home offices today, so we went to the local restaurant for some good eats and conversation during lunch. affectionate as always, we went inside the diner holding hands and sat next to a table of 4 businessmen.
we ordered, and we talked, laughed, and were thinking “this is a nice lunch”.
The food arrived, “looks great!” i said to our enthusiastic server.
“Honey, your rueben looks good! i’m glad you got that, it’s your favorite!” i said to my husband.
“yeah, it’s good” he says, “your salad looks great. i’m proud of you for eating better honeybunny”. i smiled.
one bite into my salad, i noticed 2 sets of mothers, plus kids, come in.
“salad’s good”, i think to myself, “the crutons are huge. bet they make them here, their own special recipe. how neat!”
1 minute later, another set of mothers with kids.
“this must be a popular lunch spot with mothers. how nice”
then another, and another, and another.
Within 3 minutes the landscape of the restaurant went from nice little dinner into a makeshit feed-trough for hysterical children and tired mothers.
The businessmen that were sitting next to us suddenly morphed into children. not just any children either, unattended toddlers who were holding forks and knives in chubby fists and pounding them in unison on the table demanding service.
“Christ, how many freaking kids live around here?” i said in my own head, trying not to flip out.
Another set of mothers walks in. It was clear we weren’t in a restaurant at all, rather some portal where only hungry toddlers and mothers exist.
“shit these kids love to scream” i thought to myself. “shouldn’t the mothers be doing something like cramming a sock into their kid’s mouths to make them shut the hell up?” i huffed. “Great, this one is running laps around our table. Just stay calm on the outside, just stay calm on the outside. float, float, float.” i thought as i tried to calm myself, and stabbed another cruton to eat it.
by this point, the decibel level was comparative to a moving freight train. instead of squeeling metal wheels though, it was loud-squeeling toddlers who lacked vocal training, manners, or any ability to recognize that standing on a table in a dinner isn’t really appropriate.
My husband’s face become more and more contorted; and i noticed my right ear had a piercing sound and then went totally deaf.
“Did my ear just break? God, am i deaf?!!!” I paniced to myself.
mid way through my salad (eating like a ravage animal now, just trying hurry up and get the hell out of there) another woman comes in with what looked to be a nice little boy.
they take the last table, right beside us. my husband seemed terrified.
3 seconds later this little boy had a mega meltdown to which he insisted on going outside. he had a plastic toy and threw it against the wall, jumped out of his seat to get the toy and threw it again.
the mother starred into space; i can only assume she was on tranquilizers to cope with this alien child that had taken over her life.
then, when the mother didn’t respond, he screamed this scream that convinced me he was spawn from human-hyenia breeding.
at that moment, i saw God take my husband’s soul. seriously, it was beautiful, but also sad.
so, i tell–actually sign language–to our waitress, WE’RE GOING TO HEAD OUT NOW. SEE YOU AT THE CASH REGISTER.
the mother with meltdown-boy snapped out of her stupor, and had to yank him out of the restaurant and literally drag by the forearm him to her car. his heels made a trail behind him, as he foamed at the mouth, kicking and screaming. he looked as though someone slipped PCP in his apple juice.
after paying our bill my husband and I sprinted to our car at full white-people speed. once inside the comfortable confines of his Ford Truck we looked at each other in disbelief to what we had just been through. i said, “thank God for that vasectomy”.
he repeated in a shell-shocked manner, “you can say that again. you can say that again. you can say that again…”
We drove out of that portal of hell to the safe havens of our quite cape cod home.
My husband is still twitching.
