Check Please!
Every time we venture out to render any of our local eateries functionally useless and terrified in our wake, I think, “That was so nice. Let’s never do that again.”
Yet, a month or two later, like a bad dream you can’t quite recall, we try again, and then I remembered so very clearly the horror. Oh right, in that last dream no one made it out of the cruise ship alive.
No one makes it out of the cruise ship alive EVER.
Why yes, I’d love a refill of Diet Coke. I’ll just toss the empty cup to you over the throngs of children wearing macaroni tribal face art and eating straw wrappers. Yes, you can also bring the check. Yes, please add the customary 40% for not calling the authorities to have us physically removed. Yes, I would like the molten lava cake to go. I would also like to bring your bartender home for a few hours. I can’t quite get the Dark and Stormy right.
Under the table, it looks like a Viking fight where both sides lost.
My face looks like a fight lost…to seven years of mothering Vikings.
My husband looks for the closest emergency exit.
Things are shouted. Terrible things. Things that have the wait staff playing a to-the-death game of rock, paper, scissors in an effort to avoid our table. Things like, “MOMMY, THIS IS SO FUNNY. I SAID COCKPORN INSTEAD OF POPCORN. COCKPORN! IS COCKPORN A WORD?”
Step right up and get your hot buttered cockporn. Oh yes, and the check. We’d love the check.
They always want to order their own food. My son orders his food loudly – in the direction of anyone who will listen – immediately upon entering any fine dining establishment that does not suddenly close for a suspiciously well-timed (yet impromptu) Department of Health inspection upon spotting our minivan as it enters the parking lot.
Often, I look across the expanse of corn dogs on the table for a napkin to fashion into a white flag of defeat. Through the glare of the rescue fire I’ve built under the table, I discretely signal to my husband that it’s time to start the van, while I gather coats and whatever is left of my dignity.
Often, over the loud requests for an ice cream shaped like a walrus, I will see adults staring at our table. May I suggest an eatery that does not have an ice cream cone as a mascot?
Oh ye, adults without children, what are ye doing here? Get thee to a steakery! Run! Don’t turn back.
Don’t worry about us. We’ll be okay here…as soon as we get the check. We’d love the check now.
On one hand, the kids must learn how to eat out in public. On the other hand, I keep getting banned from public places. On the other other hand, can you PLEASE bring the check now?
Random Stranger: “Oh, your children were so lovely and well behaved.”
Me (wiping mustard from eyebrow with stray floor fry): “Why, thank you! We’re working on it!”
We’re working on it. CHECK PLEASE!
Bethany Thies is a writer and the proud mother of four young Vikings. She can often be found searching for socks, keys, discount non-perishables and a bathroom lock her children cannot pick. Bethany is the author of a popular parenting blog, Bad Parenting Moments and a chronically unread poetry blog, “Room for Cream”.
