Societal Snark Du Jour

Yesterday I got a call from a good friend I hadn't heard from in awhile, so we decided to grab a bite at a nice local bistro. A glass of wine, some tapas and catching up on each other's exploits. Sounds like a recipe for a great casual Thursday evening, right?

well we hadn't counted on the asshat yupsters and their misbegotten hellspawn at the next table... oh, yes, I know you can guess what's coming next.

Cue one pair of screaming, running, whining, pouting toddlers. Climbing on furniture. Crawling on floors. Generally endangering themselves and the servers and patrons of this establishment.

It all came to a head with one of these adorable slimy little muppets Climbing. On. Our. Table!!! I mean WTF????!!!

it was at this point that I snapped. I was pissed. I went over to the mother, and gave her the ultra-polite, ultra-quiet, ultra-cold talking-to; to wit:

'I do not appreciate your rudeness in allowing your child to continue disrupting our meal. Nor do I intend to be responsible when he slips and cracks his head open on the table. So either you Get. Him. Under. Control. Now. or else I will complain to the management and I will Discipline. Your. Child. Personally.'

I have no idea how I managed to avoid getting beaten up, sued, arrested and/or screamed at for threatening their Precious Biddums. Dad made some ineffectual apologetic sorts of bullshit noise and they proceeded to round up the kids, paid and left in about two minutes flat.

I feel no sense of superiority here. Why the hell couldn't they just keep the kids seated and finish their meal; that's all I cared about.

Why in the Nine Million Names of God did this scene degenerate to the point that I felt compelled to go all UltraForce Hell Bitch on these clueless morons? I hate confrontation, and this kind of stuff makes me physically ill.

Suffice to say the yuppies and their festering brood got bitchslapped and went hungry, and our meal and our mellow Thursday night mojo was comprehensively ruined. Everybody in this scenario loses. Blah.

And why? whywhyWHY for the love of jesus merry jumping christ on a pogostick is this sort of behaviour tolerated, glossed over and generally allowed to carry on in public? Why?

Gentle Reader, kindly note. This was a Nice Restaurant. A $20-a-plate sit-down place in the middle of downtown Boulder, which at last check was considered fairly genteel and not quite the howling bourgeoisie wilderness some might attempt to paint it.

Nor do I believe (contrary to all evidence) that these people were raised by orangutans.

Oook.