It’s true. In fact, I am the acme of awesomeness. Let me give you a little taste of why I am so very, very incredible.
Last night, I went out for dinner. My companion and I went to a hibachi place. When we were seated, we were the only people at the station. A bit later, a woman about my age came in with two eight-year-old children. They sat across the way from us.
Now, I don’t like children. I get annoyed by the noise, the whining, the uncontrolled emission of various fluids–the whole thing. Additionally, I see them as a waste of valuable resources that could be used to make my life better. They’re little more than parasites, really. I can deal with kids once they reach age 20. Then, we can talk. Prior to that, I like to have as little contact with the little snot-, noise-, and shit-machines as possible.
So my companion (who shares these feelings) and I dreaded the experience.
But the children weren’t that bad. In fact, as far as kids go, they were pretty good. Their chaperone, however, canceled out their good behavior with her own. She talked in that loud, patronizing voice that adults use for children, and was just annoying as hell. Additionally, she was wearing a t-shirt that said “The measure of a society is how well it treats its animals. –Gandhi.” She wore this, and ordered the steak. So, clearly, she’s an idiot.
Anyway, dinner progressed, and three people aged 25 or so sat to our left. The chef came in, and cooked a hell of a meal. It was great. The only problem was this moron babbling away on the other side of the table. We didn’t say anything to her; we just talked about work (I always have fun stories to tell about work), and how our days went. Just a normal, adult conversation.
Finally, the meal was over, and we were figuring our bill. We put down the appropriate amount, plus a nice tip. And we go to leave. The two children that had been there with the moron had probably gone off to terrorize other patrons; at any rate, they weren’t in the room with us anymore.
That’s when the real fun began, and when I got to display my aforementioned awesomeness.
This jerkass comes up to me and says, in more or less the same patronizing tone she used with the kids, said “I know you two are on a date, and I appreciate that, but the profanity around the kids is unacceptable–the ‘fucks’ and the ‘shits.'”
As I said, we had just been having a normal conversation. We weren’t loud, we didn’t say anything about her or the kids. We’d just been talking to each other. I didn’t feel the need to go up to her and complain about her stupid-ass tone of voice or scold her for bringing children to a place where they might (horror of horrors!) hear the same shit that they hear at school every day.
My companion was taken aback. I, however, remained unfazed. Without waiting for her to finish what passed for a thought, and without missing a beat, I looked her right in the eye and said, “Lady, get the FUCK out of my face.”
Stunned, she responded with “Are you serious?”
Me: “You ain’t my mama. Step aside.”
Her: “That’s it. I’m calling the management!”
Me: [laughing] “Call the motherfuckers! I paid! What the fuck are they gonna do?”
And we left, laughing our asses off.
Now, seriously–what the fuck was her problem? What kind of middle-class bullshit was that? “I’m not satisfied with your behavior, so I feel it’s my place to correct you.” Fuck off. I’m a grown-ass man. Also, if you start some shit, you’d better be prepared to end it. The most amazing thing about the entire experience (besides, of course, me) was the fact that she was just stunned that anyone would stand up to her stupid bullshit.
However, it did give me another chance to show the world that I AM AWESOME.
Yes. Awesome.
i have learned. i shall display this brand of awesome at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully to the surprise and discomfort of a similar self-important dolt.
Gotta hit that hibachi place the next time I’m in town and hope she’s there.
That’s awesome? Just sounds like you’re almost as much of a dick as her.
Matiri, it’s Ginza of Tokyo, west side location.
Toyboat, you’re just wrong. I didn’t encroach on this woman’s space or presume to tell her how to behave. I didn’t do anything to her at all prior to her coming up to me. That she got a response that wasn’t deferential doesn’t mean that I’m a dick. It means that she had no business attempting to correct my companion’s or my behavior. I’d say that she got a response that was appropriate given her actions. I didn’t assault or even insult her. I simply told her (in a completely awesome way) that I didn’t care about her bullshit.
You ARE awesome. You are.
Gotta say, I’m not backing you up on this one (despite the fact that I’m a daily visitor to the site because of your awesomeness). As a parent with two younger kids, I think it’s basic respect for others to curb the language when children around, particularly in a public place. And yes, she was being obnoxious, I don’t question that, but the whole two wrongs don’t make a right is in play here.
Were I in her place, would I have spoken to you about it? Probably would’ve given you a look much earlier in the evening tacitly asking you to watch the language, but you’re right, I can’t control what you do, so I doubt it. But it would’ve bothered me plenty.
Reminds me of a day a long time ago I was out walking my dog in Brooklyn in Washington Park. Said park played a crucial role in the Battle of Brooklyn as well as being the first home for the Brooklyn Atlantics (later the Dodgers).
Anyhoo, I’m walking my leashed dog and she does her business and I pick it up in one of the plastic bags every responsible Park Slope dog owener carries in their pockets. And as I’m taking the bag over to the trash, this woman pushing a stroller calls out to me, so I turn around to see what she wants. She proceeds to get in my face about how this is a park WHERE CHILDREN PLAY and I shouldn’t even have my dog there, much less allow it to poop there.
I prolly was not as awesome as you were Jude, but in my own sputtering way, I did point out that I had picked up the poop, that various species of animals not nearly as germ free as my dog had been living and dying in that park since Indian times, that there were likely human remains in the soil since it had been a fucking battleground, that a baseball stadium with its attendant of crowd bodily secretions and trash had also been on the spot, that at any given day one could right here and now find crack vials and/or syringes within its confines, and me and my dog had just as much right here as her and CHILDREN!
good times
@paul Maybe you should get a sitter.
indeed, what is WITH PARENTS?!? the chitlins iz gonna hear swearing. deal with it. explain to the spawn that swearing has it’s place. but don’t sound like pimps and hos.
I cannot conduct a conversation outside of work without saying ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ for the most part, and a good number of conversations at work have ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ in them depending on who is in the room.
You bring kids anywhere that isn’t marketed specifically for kids and it is just too damn bad what they hear. Especially if they serve alcohol, like at a restaurant where Jude was at. It could happen even at the damn Denny’s that I might let a ‘fuck’ slip out (but going to Denny’s has its own set of implications).
Now, if I am at Chuck-E-Cheese or whatever they call it, she might have a point about the cussing. But at an adult place, just… no way. I don’t know if I would be as awesome as Jude was, but I certainly would have let her have it.
when did “awesome” become a synonym for “selfish”, “arrogant”, “judgmental” or “loser”? thanks for the update.
You’re also incredibly modest not to mention humble…
Or Virgo,
What about what the kids put in the soil?
If you want a real bacterial playground, go to one of those pits filled with 4 inch plastic balls.
Some of us choose NOT to have children. For whatever fuckin reason. Me? Ain’t got the patience for their shit.
Yes, even YOUR brilliant, beautiful, gifted precocious, little fucking angel. And yours, too.
That is why I do not go to Chuck E Cheez, or McDonalds, Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays, Denny’s or any number of places where I have to assume some person is gonna be dragging along one of their bundles-o-fucking-joy.
When I tailgate at football and baseball games, or I visit friends with kids, I suck it up. It’s a family atmosphere, so I curb my language near the kiddies as best I can, and I try not to get so hammered that I expose myself.
But if I’m dropping more than $20 on a meal, parTICcularly on a weekend and in an establishment with adult beverages, you need to haul your little critters out of earshot if I’m there FIRST. I aways tell the host/hostess that I do not wish to be seated near children. Period. If it can’t be done, I carry my ass.
I go out of my way NOT to be bothered by children. Because that’s what they do. Like Jude, I’ve got no sympathy when mom and dad impose their brats — and their rules — on my space.
As a mom of a seven-year-old, I resent being told that I suddenly forfeited the right to be treated like a person once I had a child, that I am now at war with people’s express right to be cussing up a storm because I helped repopulate the planet.
Yes, fine, it’s a big, bad world out there and I should just suck it up and not say a word when I bring my kid into the sushi place down the street because I have no business cramping anyone’s style by confronting them when they become politically incorrect nuisances – I must simply explain to the kiddo that people will curse, and don’t repeat what you hear, little man, which will go over as well as rancid tuna, because, as a mom, I know that whatever goes in the kid’s ears will eventually come back out his mouth – I just don’t know where or when. Fine. I’ve made my peace with that.
On the one hand, you guys were probably keeping it low. If a stray F-bomb or other four-letter word makes it down the sushi bar, well, that’s gonna happen, and it doesn’t call for a cone of silence over y’all’s heads. But where I take issue is the juvenile manner in which you handled the situation when she spoke up. Okay, sure, she was being annoying. You didn’t need to feed her misgivings like that – in my experience, such talk to someone like that is a nice battle-winner but a huge war-loser. Not. Awesome.
I second mass. Don’t sit near the kids next time if it’s more of an adult atmosphere. If you’re not too far into the meal and the kids are gonna cramp your style, move. But the more I’ve had to let go of all of the fucking immense shitload of cursing I used to do before the kid, the more I realize that most of the words really aren’t necessary unless you’re angry out of your head, and even then, you probably won’t be taken all that seriously if you’re standing there and telling someone they’re being a fucking piece of tight-assed bitchiness just ’cause they’re making a fuss.
But if you’re telling Dick Cheney to go fuck himself, then by all means, do so. I’ll even give you permission to rope my son intothat enterprise.
Jude, you *are* awesome.
The kids probably hear worse than that every day at school — and they probably never noticed you at all. Miss Up-in-Everyone’s-Face wants to get up in everyone’s face, and it’s awesome that someone finally told her (1) Get outta people’s faces and (2) No one’s afraid of impotent parental outrage.
You *are* awesome. 🙂
Not awesome, Jude.
Not any more awesome than insisting on your right to smoke in a restaurant that serves kids.
I’m coming down on the awesome side too, Jude. I curse like a sailor pretty much all the time. Have to remember to tone it down at the office, but there are a few people there who know they are free to let their fuck flag fly when we discuss things, so it’s usually only the wigs we need to be careful with.
Now, having said all that, I had a kid. He’s managed to make it to 19 with little scarring from my language. In fact, I think I can still startle him a few times when I get going. So, not all parents are busy body assholes like the idiot you encountered. I really tend to dislike people like that woman, as it sounds like you do too…she set you off with her tone of voice. So, I say, since you had left her alone during dinner, and she felt the need to intrude on you afterwards, you were just fine in your response to her.
Oh, and I’m a woman too, in my 50’s.
Just how in the fuck is it like insisting to smoke in a restaurant that serves kids? Restaurants either allow smoking or they don’t. If it was allowed, and someone did it, how in the fuck is that their problem? If you bring your kids to a restaurant where people smoke, don’t fucking be surprised when there are people smoking. Likewise, if you take your kids out in public, you can’t fucking expect to have everyone else conform to your stupid fucking idea of what is and is not proper behavior around kids. You don’t want them exposed to adults? Stick to Chuck E. Cheese. You choose to go where grown fucking people congregate, you’re going to have to deal with the habits and actions of grown fucking people.
For fuck’s sakes–I said that I wasn’t being loud. I was just having a conversation with the person sitting next to me. This stupid asshole came in after I did–if she didn’t like what I was doing, she could fucking pack sand. My actions were in no way out of line with what is normal for adults.
Sweet jeebus.
What Jude said. Also. Too.
I’m going to come down solidly in the minority here too.
A place where you’re in a “family restaurant” atmosphere isn’t a bar.
Now your confrontation with her at the end is maybe less boorish, since she instigated it, than claiming that being a boor makes you awesome, but not much.
Boor. That’s what you are. Don’t know what it means? Look it up.
As Jude’s companion at this hibachi experience, I’ve got a little to add, especially after reading the parents’ comments above.
I made reservations at this restaurant. We were the first ones seated and judging by the timing of the other two parties that were seated afterward, they were walkins. I dine at this restaurant regularly. Usually in the evening there aren’t too many children, but occasionally there are and I have NEVER had a problem with the kids or their parents like I did during this visit.
The woman was very loud all throughout the meal. She talked to fill silence and was obnoxious. Honestly, the fact that children were with her was a nonissue as far as what was ruining my dining experience. And, if there was an option to get another hibachi table (which there wasn’t) I certainly would have asked to be reseated.
Also, during the meal, before she cornered and confronted us there was something that struck me as inappropriate to say in front of the kids. The chef was making the onion volcano, where he lights the alcohol filled onion on fire. He says, “don’t try this at home.” A woman from the third party at our table says, “Yeah, try it at your friend’s house when their mom isn’t home.” And the kids’ mom LAUGHED and said “yeah.” Seriously? Later she berates us for saying “dumbass”, “shitheel”, and “fucking”, but suggesting your kids play with fire unsupervised is appropriate? (“shitheel” is a fantastic word that more people should use)
While Jude’s comments in public sometimes make me anxious, I support his response this time. The woman did corner us, blocking our exit. He basically told her to get out of our way and let us pass. Were it me, I wouldn’t have used profanity in my response, but as it was, I was just flabbergasted, mouth agape that this woman had the balls to say that to us after her display throughout the meal.
And lastly, my account of the situation (which, as a regular patron, I e-mailed to Ginza – because you know that woman complained to management and got a fucking coupon out of the deal) was much more humble than Jude’s, and every parent who read my blog agreed the woman was out of line.
Well, that’s different. The way Jude wrote about it, it seemed to be about a beef with parents in general. Not all parents are like Ms. Obnoxious-In-Your-Face. That’s a woman who needs to have her kids incinerate all her clothes sometime. I mean, damn.
Who has a beef against parents OR kids?!
Know where yer going. If you’re in a grown-up place, get the kids ready fer it or go somewhere else.
We’re not talking about a Klan meeting or Rotary function. An adult place is gonna have adult language. Prepare OR Chuck E Chees it. Why should an adult like me adjust my life for a kid in a steakhouse or sushi joint.
Who wants to cuss in front of a kid? BUT…who wants a kid in a grown-up establishment?
fuck it, if i had bred, i wouldn’t give a shit.
and can we get a jihad going on fucking ice cream trucks rolling around w/ earworms blaring?
now get off my lawn!
If it sells alcohol and has a smoking section, it’s an establishment primarily intended for adults, unless it also has a separate kiddie room or something. Someone at a table with a companion talking in a reasonable tone should not have to censor their conversation.
If it’s a place where you have to share a table and I’m there first and the waitstaff seatsanybody I’d rather not share a table with, I will (and have) asked if they can be seated elsewhere or me and my companions can be. If that is accomplished, I will leave an extra tip,too.
If I’m out for the evening with friends at a public establishment that sells alcohol and has a primarily adult crowd, I would not be pleased at having to share my space with children. Truth be told, unless they were AT my table or running around screaming, I doubt I would notice them and I would converse as I normally converse. Which is likely to have an f-bomb or two.
I love kids and I know it’s tough to be a parent and also go out. But kids are not my anywhere on my list of dining/drinking companions.
Jude, you were not really awesome. If you had been, your response to that lovely lady would have been, “Shit Lady. Fuck off!” Note, that you omitted the most important word.
I’m probably down the middle on this one.
Jude was in the right for not letting a person who has acted repugnant try and act like their shit doesn’t stink and talk down to him.
I’m also quite liberal when it comes to the creativeness of my cussing but I also try to limit quite severely the amount of swearing that I do in front of kids. However I don’t think I would have balls large enough to confront someone who said ‘shitheel’ if I’d been a loud obnoxious prick all night.
For those people who have said (paraphrasing) ‘I don’t swear at work but I let fly outside of it’ you should re-examine the reasons why you limit your swearing at work. If you are so confident in your freedom to swear in public then what’s holding you back from swearing in the workplace? What rules have you set for yourself in the workplace that can’t also be applied to everywhere else but the privacy of your own home?
Hopefully Jude if your attitudes change if\when you decide to have children you’ll revisit this post and update accordingly.
It is interesting that you were offended by each others boorish behavior but since she had children with her she felt she was entitled to confront you on yours while you felt you had to tolerate hers.
I’m not sure why people whose language is laced with expletives think it is appropriate in one group and not another.
It always seems thoughtless, lazy, and in many cases nothing more than a verbal tic like um or yanno to me.
I thought about this for quite a long time before posting. Here’s the thing–both of you appear to have been boorish in your behavior. The woman by–as you saw it–taking up more space than she was entitled to (talking too loudly, and in a manner that you found condescending or obnoxious.) Also, you were offended from the first by imagining that she wasn’t entitled to “walk in” to the restaurant that you patronize on a regular basis. And that she had the nerve to do it with kids (shock, horror!) And then, to top it all off,when she had sat at a group table and interacted with the other patrons at the group table–exchanging a joke (the nerve) with some other group at the other side of the table she actually interacted with Jude as he was leaving. What a terrible thing! And she mentioned, politely, that she had found your conversation a little rude and obscene for one taking place in a group setting that was shared with children.
To which you gathered all your composure and your adult sense of courtesy and generosity and you screamed obsceneties in her face. Have I got that right?
Jude, you need to have your blood pressure checked. You might also choose to patronize restaurants which don’t seat you at a group table where you are expected to manage many conflicting obligations such as interacting with the chef and with other patrons (regardless of their age).
You really revealed youreself to be a small, frightened, angry person in this post. I started out feeling merely revolted as I read it, but that turned to sincere pity. I don’t really care how out of line you feel it was for that woman to come up to you. You demonstrated from the get go a sense of exteme entitlement and you seem to have projected on to this woman a lot of stored up rage and bile. Its not admirable. It doesn’t reflect any kind of courage, or principle, and certainly not common courtesy. Its. Just. Fucking. Pathetic. If I were the owner of Ginza I’d bar you from the restaurant because you don’t seem to grasp that a restaurant is a public accomodation and that when you sit at a group table, or in close quarters, you need to modulate your behavior.
aimai
aimai, have you got that right? No, you got it about as wrong as you can get it.
I wasn’t offended that she was allowed to walk in. I was noting that in response to a previously poster that asking to move wasn’t a particularly viable option, and I’m not sure why that was my sole responsibility and not that of a woman who didn’t speak up until the meal was over. She could have asked the waitress to move. She could have gotten up during the meal and walked over and asked us to quiet our tone during the meal, when it mattered, but she didn’t.
I found her to be obnoxious, but yes, that happens in public spaces and I tolerate it. I didn’t insult her, even under my breath to Jude, but I did store notes to bitch about on the ride home.
I do use expletives at work (in my office) because there are appropriate times for it. And I do moderate and adjust my behavior for and around children. For instance, I go to our farmers market before 7 a.m. because afterward, it is stroller central. But at restaurants where adult meals and drinks add up to $50 per person, and where we’re seated next to a 20 seat fully stocked bar, I certainly have expectations that parents might compose themselves and hold higher standards of behavior for their children. And there’s a difference between expectations and entitlement.
She didn’t politely interact with us. She blocked our exit, made assumptions that we were on a date, and judged us on our behavior. What’s the point of her coming up to us after the meal as we’re leaving but to feel like she can parent yet another person? Or maybe the chardonnays she was drinking throughout the meal had gone to her head.
You assumed that Jude screamed in her face. Why? Because swearing is angry and loud and must be shouted? Well, maybe that’s the way you see it because maybe you’re the small, frightened, angry person who can’t see it any other way. But, yeah, his tone was only slightly louder than our quiet, private conversational tone had been all night.
For the record, we know what boor means and it’s not synonymous with letting people walk all over you.
Hell Kat,
It was not I that asked you to look up the word Boor. That was someone else. Here’s why I thought that Jude screamed in her face:
Without waiting for her to finish what passed for a thought, and without missing a beat, I looked her right in the eye and said, “Lady, get the FUCK out of my face.”
Because he used all caps to describe how he spoke to her on the word “fuck.”
As for the rest of my response. Look, I can only go on what you and Jude wrote. That means I dont know how terribly horrific it was for the two of you to be trying to enjoy your after dinner grown up time and have the awfulness of being seated at a table with mere “walk ins” with horrible “children” who “drink chardonnay” and wear stupid tee shirts that seem self contradictory or improperly ironic or not hip enough and who project into your personal space while, apparently, wrongfully hearing and noticing that you are projecting into their personal space. Its incredible that the entire time this woman and the two children were having noisy and inappropriate and condescending interaction on one side of the table which you were unable to screen out and stored up for later venting on the internet *they* were not able to act like there was an invisible wall and actually wound up having to listen to your amusing and adult obscenity laced conversation. How dare they! Its like there was nothing between you and them but a few feet and ambient air.
Look, I’m sorry that you and Jude are under the impression that a) the entire world and the restaurant are set up to make sure that Jude never encounters anyone that reminds him of how powerless he felt as a child (“you ain’t my mama”/ she felt like she could parent yet another person.) And I’m sorry that you were unable to create a zone of total privacy around you such that you didn’t notice her. Apparently, she wasn’t able to do so either and she didn’t enjoy the bits of your conversation she had to put up with either. The two experiences are, in fact, apparently, mirror images.
In your mind you are the injured party because she “blocked your exit” to speak to you privately, after the dinner, and to request that you use better judgement next time about the kind of language you used in mixed company in a public space. Sounds polite, to me. You weren’t able to move to another table? She wasn’t either! Apparently instead of storing up her anger for bitching later, anonymously, on line she took it upon herself to speak to you both adult to adult. You took it as condescending and scary and all parental and shit. Grow the fuck up. If you don’t want to be treated as a child don’t act out all over the place *like a god damned child* and shriek “you aint my mama” at another person because they have a different assesment of a joint event (the dinner at a group table) than you do.
For the record if someone says something you disagree with replying politely “I disagree, could you please move” is the appropriate thing to say. Its not “letting people walk all over you.”
Really, the more I hear about this story, and the more I read Jude’s posts, the more moronic and self centered you both appear.
aimai
Full support of Jude. Well done.
Preposition fail by me.
Full supportfor Jude.
There – that’s a better-sounding sentence fragment.
What aimai said. (And I know I’ve fucking written that before.)
Jude, most of the time, you’re an asshole but you’re right. This ain’t one of those times.
I cuss like a sailor, too, and I’ve spent a fair bit of time and (my employer’s) money litigating First Amendment issues in the past quarter-century.
But I also wasn’t born in a barn, so I generally try not to drop any F-bombs or the like if a third party, of any age, is within earshot. That was true before I had kids, it’s true now, and it’ll be true when my kids are grown and gone.
Sorry, Jude, on this one you forge on without me.