Note: I’m revising my last post in this entry for the simple fact that I keep forgetting you guys aren’t familiar with what city I’m in, where my restaurant is located in the city, the racial/cultural/economic boundaries in my city and, as a writer, that’s all my fault. I’ll try my best in the future to give you guys some decent background when I’m writing from now on.

Every now and again, a family will come in and bring their loud-mouthed son or daughter into the restaurant. And every now and again, they will say something so socially awkward, so incredibly uncomfortable, I have to remove myself from the table, print out a blank receipt and write it down.

Case in point:

A family of four came in. In the city I live, there are obvious boundaries in town in terms of economic and racial diversity. For example, in one part of town, the population “diversity” goes as follows:

1. 90% white
2. Small percentage of hispanics, blacks and asians.

It’s near a major interstate and as a result is also filled with low-income housing. This is the section of town that is closest to our restaurant and naturally we see a lot of families from the closest section of town to our restaurant.

Anyways, the family of four is all by themselves at the table so far. It is painfully obvious this table is from the closest section of town. The father is wearing a shirt with a rebel flag on the back of it with a portrait of Dale Earnhardt strewn across like some Nascar/bald eagle hybrid. He’s talking into his cell phone and hangs up rather quickly as I come by their table.

Maybe he hung up because of the subject of the conversation. Maybe it was that he is a consicentous customer at restaurants. The only thing I know were the words that came out of his daughter’s mouth next:

Little Girl: “Daddy, what’s a ‘nigger’?”
Me: “Holy crap.”

Parents, if you’re going to be throwing around words like “nigger” at home or in restaurants, at least have the common decency to tell your four year old girl what it means. For example:

Dad: “Oh man, this nigger at work the other day was…oh, gotta call you back, Jim. Susie’s in the room.”
Susie: “Daddy, what’s a ni…”
Dad: “Whoa whoa whoa there, Susie. I didn’t mean to say ni…uh…that word.”
Susie: “But what is one?”
Dad: “Well, Susie. It’s an evil demon that lives in the cracks of sidewalks and if you ever…and I mean EVER fucking say that word, it will come out of the ground and rip your frickin’ eyes out. Do I make myself clear?”
Susie: (trembling) “Yes, Daddy.”
Dad: “Now run along, little Susie and go develop an eating disorder so the kids at school will like you.”

See how easy that was, parents?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 2:06 and is filed under Kids, Moms, Dads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.