Eating Out With Teenagers
Going to a Chinese food buffet with two teenagers is like taking two baboons from the zoo and walking into Tiffany’s.
First off, one complains about having to say their drink order after his sister, because then it looks like he copied her for ordering Sprite. (like the waitress really cares!)
Then they walk over to the buffet, hollering over to the other one… “Hey, they have the baby squid again!”
We get back to the table, and my son looks at his overflowing plate and says, “Yeah, I’m really not that hungry.” And they laugh hysterically.
My daughter proceeds to be completely mesmerized by the baby squid on her plate, or octopus, whatever the creature is.. or was… and then tells it “I am gonna eat you…NOW.” This elicits more hysterical laughter from both of them.
Then she picks up a large white thing and her brother informs her that it is a large sucker from a squid tentacle. Or a marine testicle. No matter, she eats it, and hysterical laughter erupts from our table again.
Then they get dessert.
My daughter comes back with some cubes of Jell-O, and since my son didn’t get Jell-O, he asks her for one. For no apparent reason, she picks one up and plops it into his hand before he can jerk it away.
“Ew, why did you do that!!” and more hysterical laughing, so she picks up another and plops a orange Jell-O cube into his other hand.
Juggle, juggle, “plop!” onto the floor, the other hits the wall and then lands in my plate.
More hysterical laughter and he tries to pick up the cube of Jell-O on the floor without falling off his chair, weak from laughter.
My loony daughter is still hysterically laughing, and they decide that this would have been a great YouTube.
By this point, the owners of the Chinese Buffet are talking about me in Mandarin, clucking their tongues on how American mothers are really pretty slack to let their kids be so hysterical during dinner.
Another discussion on how fortune cookies just aren’t that good, “Yes, they ARE!” and a reading of the fortunes which last night were all just general and thankfully, not funny, and we were out the door.
On the way out, my eldest son calls my cell phone and as I tell him about their antics, and he starts laughing hysterically….even from the Smoky Mountains, he is just as attune to their zaniness as if he were at the table with them.
Sigh. Taking teenagers out to eat is quite an adventure.
Be cool, Mom
Thanks for the chuckle, Jana. I hope that you were able to keep your sense of humor about the whole thing. I probably would have been really uptight. I recall my daughter was once reprimanded in what was then the Golden China for repeatedly sliding off the seat of the booth and landing under the table. Apparently the dragon lady that ran the place thought she was doing it on purpose. I think the seat was just greasy.
My husband always used to panic when we attempted to take our four out to eat. I would have to explain, "if we never take them to a restaurant, they won't know how to act in a restaurant". I'm sure your kids probably save their zaniest behavior for you and act like perfect angels when out with other people. Right? Hopefully? Maybe?
Absolutely!
Yes, they are really angels with everyone else but me. (I hope!)
As they say ...
Remember, they make them cute when they're young so you don't kill them when they get older.
Mine are 24 and about to be 21. And I kind of miss the teenagers.
Doug
803-777-3315
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