Further Background...

Reading the comments on my last entry (Conversation Police), I feel the need for a little further explanation.

1.)  It's not like my dining companions and I were sitting there swearing like truck drivers.  We were having an adult conversation, using uncensored adult language, which might have included terms like s**t, crap, and perhaps one or two instances of the f-word.  (As in, WTF is wrong with people...?) 

2.)  The tavern DOES allow, even welcomes, children with their parents, but it doesn't necessarily cater to them.  This is a chain of brew-pubs whose major claim to fame is that they brew/ferment/distill their own spirits.  So while families are welcome, it's also understood that people are going to go to this place to consume alcoholic beverages, which in MY mind isn't an ideal place to take children..

3.)  None of us at the table was blind, stinking drunk.  My husband doesn't drink, Jackie was drinking iced tea, and I had two glasses of chardonnay.  We did have to raise our voices a tad to be heard over the "background" music, but we weren't hooting, hollering, or otherwise calling the attention of the whole restaurant to ourselves.

4.)  This is a "seat yourself" place, and we were one of about three parties in the whole restaurant.  So, as I said, Perfect Family had the choice of just about the whole building, and CHOSE, for some reason, to sit right next to us.  AND they could have moved any time they wanted without summoning a waitress. 

5.)  I have no problem whatsoever with folks taking their children out to meals at "sit-down" restaurants.  As long as they can exhibit some semblance of  "polite company" manners.  (I guess, after this episode, this means the parents as well as the children.)  I DO have a problem with young, affluent couples who believe it's not only their right, but their DUTY to take their children with them anywhere, anytime, and expect everyone else to accomodate THEM.  When I see a cranky toddler disturbing an entire restaurant full of adults at 8 or 9 pm, when the poor kid should be at home in bed, I wonder if it's not really some form of child abuse.

Okay, I'm done obsessing about this particular episode.  Thank you all for your supportive comments!  I was hoping I wasn't really being an old cranky fart about this.