Andy Hinds | Parenting
Last Friday, some friends and I converged upon a certain pan-Asian North Park eatery, whose exterior wall is adorned with a mural of a hipster gremlin riding atop a pink Tyrannosaurus Rex, enjoying refreshing cocktails along with zesty noodles, savory won-tons and spicy chicken.
Despite the rain outside, it truly was a lovely evening, as everyone in our party of 11 deported themselves in a convivial and garrulous manner. In fact, even before the appetizers arrived there were moments when, I admit, some of my dining companions became a bit over animated and perhaps unnecessarily clamorous, as passionate as they were about their conversation.
More than once, eyes turned toward our table, but we paid them no mind. It’s a capacious space, where music and table chatter merges to create an ambient hum that dulls the impact of all but the shrillest outbursts.
As the dishes were passed around the table and the drinks refilled, my cohorts became even more rambunctious. They gesticulated wildly, and brayed at each other across the table. They clumsily switched seats with one another, upsetting cups and dragging their sleeves through saucy platters in their urgency to interact closely with this diner or to escape the attention of that one.
When they began crawling under the table to switch positions or chase down a reluctant companion, I reached my limit. I hissed at them to please exhibit some decorum, despite their high spirits.
As I said, the atmosphere in the restaurant was lively; but we were now drawing unwanted attention, and more than one look that could easily be described as “the stinkeye.” I was sure that were the hour later, the very patrons who cast sidelong glances would have been far more boisterous than my young compatriots; nonetheless, I didn’t want to create any ill will if I could help it.
As more diners arrived and the noise level relative to our table ascended, I ceased worrying about our party creating a disturbance: in any case, my previous admonitions, and those of other, more sober, companions, seemed to have had the desired effect on the rabble-rousers among us.
A contingent of the most ebullient of the young ladies in our group announced that they needed to retire to the restroom: so my male friend and I escorted them, lest they become distracted, lost, or simply begin eating off the plates of strangers. As my friend and I prepared ourselves to subdue them, they gamboled to the restroom happily, hand-in-hand.
Adorable.
Their business in the lavatory having transpired uneventfully, we set out on our return trip to the table.
And then it happened: the aforementioned shrillest outburst. It arose first from the lungs of one of our three petite companions like the mighty cry of a sea eagle. Then it escalated, as if the sea eagle were joined by a fire engine. Finally, when it seemed that the shriek could get no louder, the third girl opened her mouth, and an air-raid siren wailed loudly enough that I was concerned about the plate glass on the storefront.
As the three tiny banshees synchronized their battle cry, they took to their heels, sprinting the breadth of the vast floor of the department-store-turned-restaurant. My male friend lit off after them, chanting “no, no, no.” But it was too late. Every eye in the restaurant turned toward the tiny procession that somehow produced the sound of a ship’s whistle trying to drown out a foghorn.
As for myself, I took quite the opposite tack of my friend. I strolled casually toward my seat, and when diners craned their necks to see whence came the bedlam that disrupted their repast, I contorted my face to mirror their grimaces, shrugged my shoulders in empathetic bewilderment, plugged my ears, winced, and said loudly, “I’ve never heard such a racket. Whose children are they, anyway?”
I may have fooled some of the customers, but the waiter rolled his eyes: he had seen the culprits sitting on my lap and eating from my plate. The diners in adjacent tables, several of whom happened to be acquaintances, also recognized me as the father of two of the three feral children.
There was no way I could get away clean. So I sat back down with my family and our friends, and told my daughters that they were never again to play “Satan’s Fire Truck” in a crowded restaurant. Did they take the message to heart? We shall see, the next time we go out to dinner.
Some of the parents in our group were mortified by the spectacle our girls had created, but soon enough, a rowdy group of adults on the other side of the restaurant started shout-singing in the most cacophonous manner; something about “Happy Birthday to so-and-so,” followed by a cheer that reminded one of the drunken bellowing of spectators at a cockfight.
“Ugh,” I said. “What do those people think this place is?”
Anyway, I felt vindicated that the so-called grownups proved just as disruptive as our little darlings, and not nearly as cute.
—Andy Hinds is a stay-at-home dad, blogger, freelance writer, carpenter and sometimes-adjunct writing professor. He is known on the internet as Beta Dad, but you might know him as that guy in North Park whose kids ride in a dog-drawn wagon. Read his personal blog at betadadblog.com. Reach him at betadad@gmail.com or @betadad on Twitter.
