Dinner Out

We went out to dinner tonight. We were slowly spiraling up a crowded parking structure where people were slowly walking to their cars. Some people would turn toward their cars just as we passed them. Would it have been so difficult to point toward their car to let us, or anyone in front of us, know that they were about to leave? If I were walking to my car and saw a long line of people waiting for a parking spot, that's what I would do. And when people finally get into their car, would it be too much to ask that they just buckle up and start the car and back out? Do they have to check their makeup, adjust their air conditioning, find their favorite radio station or CD, check their text messages, or make a phone call? They'd have plenty of time to do that on their way out of the parking structure. Then we get to the restaurant. The music being played is way too loud, so everyone has to talk over the music. But they don't just talk loud, they have to shout across the table and scream when they laugh. I couldn't hear anything the server or my dining partner said. This happens almost every time we go to a restaurant. And don't get me started on people who bring their kids with them. Why does an entire restaurant have to be held a captive audience to everything their kids say and do? This one time we were at a restaurant where the tables are practically on top of one another, well right next to one another anyway. There's this long bench seat the length of the restaurant, with tables in front of it. Each table has one or two chairs on the opposite side. So there we are having a nice quiet dinner, when a weekend daddy and his three kids sit down next to us. Two boys, maybe 9 and 11 or 12 years old, and a teenaged girl, perhaps 14 or 15. She wore her iPod the whole time, and I was about to learn why. Dad proceeds to ask the older of the two boys how often he brushes his teeth! This conversation he saves for the dinner table, in a restaurant, not two feet away from other people! And he was not discreet about it! He was quite loud and droned on and on about oral hygiene for the remainder of our time there. He said things such as, "Doesn't anyone ever tell you that your breath stinks?" and "How often does your mother take you to the dentist?" He then proceeded to talk about his root canals, rotting teeth, and repeated the phrases "breath stink" and "stinking breath" over and over and over. I was beside myself and wanted so badly to say something to him, but didn't want to start anything. My dining partner left the table to use the restoom before we left the restaurant. I took the fortune from my fortune cookie and turned it over. On it I wrote "I did not appreciate your choice of dinner conversation. Oral hygiene is not an appropriate topic to discuss at the dinner table, especially in a restaurant within earshot of other people." I showed it to my dining partner when he returned and asked what he thought of me leaving it on their table as we left. He crumpled it up and said "let's get out of here." I asked him why he didn't want to say or do anything, and he said he didn't want to make things uncomfortable, since we were sitting right next to them. HE didn't want to make things uncomfortable??? Puleez!!!