A good friend, Buttercup, and I often share messages from the Mommy-Message-Boards which make us laugh. We then realized this morning: Wait, why aren’t we sharing this with the world? She then wisely followed up with: Because we’re in a public business and we don’t want people to think we’re assholes.
Buttercup is right, but yet, much like resisting the urge to stuff cake in my face on a daily basis…I can’t resist the temptation to prove that I’m a snarky, sarcastic asshole. It’s gotten me in solid trouble for 4 decades so far, why stop now?
Anyway, on with the show. Here’s a recent gem that made us “WTF” email back and forth to each other several times.
From the Brookland Mom’s Board:
I wanted to share an experience we had at [insert local restaurant here] last night.
We went for dinner around 6pm and were seated right next to the television. I didn’t take note of what was on the TV or I would have asked for another table (though we’d already waited about 15 minutes and it was getting late): they were playing a graphic war documentary. I’m talking guns, tanks, bombed out houses, and kids role-playing being beaten and held at gunpoint. After asking the manager if she could change it (she was very nice but said she could not as the manager dictates all of the programming) we spent the rest of our dinner doing our best to distract our 4 year old and figuring out how to respond to his questions about what was on the TV.
I honestly can’t understand why anyone would think that war footage would be appropriate programming for the dinner hour, especially in this family-friendly neighborhood. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised given this restaurant’s reputation for being fairly family un-friendly at their other locations, but I’d hoped this one would be different.
My husband is drafting an email to the manager and I’m hopeful that he will reconsider his dinner-hour programming choices in the future. I am not sure we will be going back, but if we do, we will definitely pay closer attention to what is on the TV before sitting down, and probably ask to be seated in the back room.
Why the hell is it the restaurant’s responsibility to control what your kids watch on TV? Here’s a novel idea, if you’re afraid that something out there might scare little Billy, then maybe you should stay home? Like, forever, permanently, just lock the doors, pull the shades, pull up the drawbridge and don’t let anyone inside! I think Buttercup and I like to naively think there is only one of these kind of people in the world, but no. Someone responded.
That reminds me that when we were there for dinner last week (2 Fridays ago), they had on nature videos, which for the most part were fine and enjoyed by my toddler, but there were definitely scenes where one animal was mauling another–pretty graphic too. Not sure why anyone would want to watch that while eating. Luckily my daughter wasn’t paying attention during those scenes. Your husband is welcome to mention me and our experience. I thought about writing to someone, but like many other things, it slipped my mind.
At least caller #2 didn’t instantly message an entire neighborhood about it.
I realize I’m not a “normal” parent by today’s standards, but I think I’ve come to actually loathe this kind of parenting so much that it pains me to even see people like this. I went into a local restaurant/bar with the First Mate last week to have lunch with a friend and the Host asked if I was “with them.” He nodded over at a group of 10 women, all holding babies, the floor beneath them a total disaster area, strollers all over the place and I said, “No. Kill me. I would never be with them.”
I know. That wasn’t nice of me. Sometimes I’m an asshole. It’s not like I didn’t warn you at the beginning of this post.
