Most people in Memphis aren’t this rude
Subtitle: One of the few times I’ve seen my husband lose it in public
Lannie called me on the way home from work yesterday and wanted to go out for dinner. He had been seeing IHOP commercials and was craving pancakes. I already had dinner in the oven, but I saved it for later, and we took Phillip to IHOP.
Normally, a last-minute dinner out like that would have been an ordeal with all three kids, but since the other two are gone this week, it was just the three of us. Phillip was in a pretty good mood, so I felt good about taking him out.
We sat in a booth with a glass partition separating us from the lady in the booth beside us. Phillip had one little outburst when the waiter came to take our order because he had been playing with the syrup, and Lannie took the syrup away from him. It wasn’t a big outburst, just a little yell of protest.
I was distracted by Phillip and the waiter when suddenly Lannie turned to the lady in the booth next to us and said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make comments to me about how to raise my kid.”
I looked at him quizzically, then the lady yelled at Phillip to “Sit down and shut up!” I think the original comment had been directed to Lannie about how Phillip needed a spanking, because she then threatened to spank him herself!
Lannie told me later he was proud of the way he controlled himself, but he threw down his menu, picked Phillip up, and headed out of the restaurant. He turned back to the waiter and told him, “It’s not you.” As I was chasing him out the door, I heard the man in the booth behind us chewing out the other lady, saying, “I’ve never seen anything as rude as that in my whole life!”
Thinking about it later, I wondered if maybe the lady had some kind of dementia. She was about 70 years old. Lannie thought she was just mean. He said he thought the threat to spank Phillip was a real physical threat, and he had to get him out of there.
We did find another IHOP down the street, so Lannie got his pancakes. We all eventually had a pleasant meal.
Filed under: Memphis, Phillip, family, kids, parenting on July 31st, 2008
I think the control came into play as I didn’t call the lady any of the potential names or threaten her in the manner she threatened my son.
I think saying she was 70 is pushing the facts here. She just looked like a hard living late 50s to me. Also, she was definitely demented, crotchety and extremely rude, but she did not have dementia. She knew exactly what she was doing and saying.
My only regret in the experience is that I didn’t stay in the restaurant and give her verbally what she gave my son and then ask the waiter to move us away from her.
Oh my gosh! I would have gotten upset too!