CAN YOU SUPER-SIZE THAT SCREAMING?

Who are these people taking their newborn children to restaurants? Let me narrow that

down. Who are these people taking small children to restaurants that provide a server? Not a

server where the level of service is limited to “You want to Super-Size that?” I’m talking about a

real, live person who knows what wine might or might not be good with the duck. Just to make

myself perfectly clear, that excludes any restaurant with playground equipment.

We always seem to find these people every time my wife and I go on a date. Since my

wife got pregnant the first several times I looked at her, a date represents a sizable investment on

our part. Not just financially, but an investment in time and effort.

First, we have to secure the babysitter.

I have no idea why, but potential babysitters seem to lose interest when they learn we

have four children.

A good way to circumvent the four child objection is simply in the definition itself of the

word “children”. For example, when asked, I now say that we only have two children. I do this

honestly because I define the word “child” as anyone between the ages of birth and five-years-

old. Anyone beyond the five-year-old threshold is, under my new terms, included in the preteen

grouping.
 Preteen is also not a category you need to publicize to the prospective babysitter. There

are some negative connotations associated with the term “teen” so, if my hand is called, then I

usually use the more vague and generic “tween” that’s having some currency in child

development circles these days.

So, anyway, my wife secured the services of a babysitter, who managed to show up at our

house within thirty minutes of the assigned time and appeared to be sober. We exited the house

by throwing candy into a corner and slipping away while the children and preteens fought for it,

and arrived at the restaurant just in time for our eight o’clock dinner reservation.

Now there’s always a little buyer’s remorse after you leave your children in the care of

someone else. Not so much for your childrens’ well being, they’ll be fine, as for what kind of

trouble they can create without a battle hardened veteran there to keep an eye on things. With

kids, they can sometimes get a ball rolling that is hard to stop.

Recently, while my wife and I were on another date, our kids found our cat, Gray, dead in

the woods behind our house. When we got home the kids had worked themselves into an

emotional frenzy. They pleaded with me to do mouth to mouth, but I assured them the cardboard

stiff carcass was well beyond our efforts.

The kids were traumatized. We dug a hole and stuck Gray the dead cat in it. We had an

elaborate service. There were poems and prayers and tears. An expensive sterling silver cross

was brought from inside and stuck in the dirt. This was something of a surprise for the parents.

An expensive surprise. But it wasn’t like we could take the thing back.
 At least the kids were not afraid to emote. My older children were generous with their

grief, saying things like “We’ll miss you Gray,” and “It’s your fault Mom! If you’d let him stay

inside then Gray would still be alive.”

Judging by the few wounds that I’d been able to see on the carcass, it looked like another

animal had done him in, probably a dog.

I was pretty irritated that we were having this big production for the cat anyway. The

thing was pretty psycho. He scratched the kids all the time. They didn’t even like him.

So, after they had heaped abuse on their mother, our children dropped into the dirt for one

last tearful prayer for their departed cat. I was headed for the back door, thinking about lunch,

when I suddenly stopped. I called my wife. To her credit, she was still with the kids and their

really long prayer, staying to the bitter end, hoping that would absolve her of some blame.

She kept her head bowed, and held up a hand for me to wait.

I called her again.

She gestured with her hand, like can’t you see we are praying here?

I called her once more

She finally looked up, seeing what I saw.

Which was our cat, Gray. Very much alive. Standing by the back door.

“It’s a miracle,” the children yelled when they saw him too. As they all stood around

staring at the cat, nothing was said about the cat we had just buried. In fact, the kids thought this
was the same cat, brought back to life through tears and prayers and crayon colored pictures

heaped upon the grave.

We had a celebratory lunch. Gray got to come inside and he purred a lot and seemed to

be nearly as excited as the children.

Then the doorbell rang.

It was a neighbor from down the street. Looking for his cat. They’d gotten it declawed

and it was missing.

“Any chance it was gray?” I asked.

“Yes. You’ve seen him?”

“Nope, just curious,” I said.

But my neighbor knew something was up and relations have been frosty ever since.

And all of it could have been avoided if I’d been at home. If I’d been there when the kids

discovered the carcass in the woods we would have never gotten to this point. I’d have said

something about how evil the cat was and how this was God’s way of getting back at Gray for

attacking them all those times and that would have been that. No tearful production. No

expensive cross in the mud. No taking the time to bury my neighbor’s cat. No pissed off

neighbor.
 This was the kind of thing weighing on my mind as we were seated for our dinner. But I

brushed those thoughts away. I took my wife’s hands, stared deep into her eyes, and was about to

launch into a conversation about reality television, when THEY came in.

THEY were hard to miss. The mother looked like she had applied her makeup during an

earthquake measuring over eight on the Richter Scale. She was also either a direct descendant of

Dolly Parton, or she was breastfeeding. The father trudged along behind her. He had the

thousand yard stare of someone who’d been in baby country too long, and he was carrying a

basket with some type of screeching animal in it.

Turned out the animal was their newborn.

THEY and the screaming newborn were seated right next to us.

People at the surrounding tables were forced to make the obligatory polite comments

about the child.

“She’s just darling,” said one woman, as her husband waved with both arms for another

drink.

After a few gracious compliments had been bestowed on the thrashing baby, the mother,

like mothers everywhere, dropped that whopper of all lies. “I just fed her, so I expect she’ll drop

off to sleep at any time.”

Not unless the room ran out of oxygen, but what can you do in this situation? Call the

waiter over and say, “Excuse me, we would like to move to another table.”

“Is there any particular table you would like?”

“Do you have one in Afghanistan?”

Instead, my wife and I suffered through our meal like rattled Vietnam vets who had just

been exposed to some type of live fire exercise. The only time this child did not scream was
when she was crammed up against her mother’s breast, which would have been just fine with

me, but the mother had to go and order the rack of lamb. Then she passed off the wailing kid to

her husband because, as she explained loudly for all of us to hear, there was NO WAY she could

eat rack of lamb with just one hand.

I guess it would have been improper to ask her husband to hold the thing up to her boob

while she ate her lamb. I could have offered to do it for them, but I’m pretty sure that would have

crossed some personal space boundary.

So I was left sitting there with my wife, doing our best to salvage something out of our

date. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, why were these people there? They looked miserable. The

meal was costing them a fortune. Why didn’t they get a babysitter? Come to think of it, I had got

some preteens who needed the work.