Table Manners

So this is something that has annoyed me for a number of years now but after seeing a couple of kids at my table and than serving a whole mess of adults last night I was amazed by the number of people, especially men, who have no idea how to eat. These people that I talk about are not the average person, lets take me for example I am not the pillar of table manners as to which everyone should wish to be. I put my elbows on the table, sometimes I will drop my cutlery on the plate and yes I even drink my soup from the bowl rather than painstakingly using the spoon. The people that I am talking about are the people that order 3 different plates and than pick over all three, like they have just gotten out of jail, and haven’t eaten in 5 years, so they slurp and snarl to get the food in their mouth, and so help me god if I go in their reaching to drop off another glass of Diet Pepsi, I lose a finger…

But lets get to the story that brought on this topic. I had a family of three come in last night, from what I gathered it was an Aunt with her niece and nephew. Now the children were quite well behaved as far as children go I had no problem with them. Used their please and thank you, asked me questions about their selections, used napkins etc. However the young nephew had the annoying habit of either asking me questions while I was at another table or asking me questions trying to get alcohol or using alcohol lingo. Now the first one, I can understand if you haven’t been to too many restaurants and your a kid, you get excited so it happens. I take it in stride and move on. It also helps that the hot aunt was apologizing to me every step of the way because she knew what it was to me, slightly annoying. However the alcohol thing pisses me off, its the same type of thing that I wrote my horror story on over at ragingserver.com, these kids that think it is funny to hold me up so that they can get alcohol. First your fucking like 10 years old and second I have the right to refuse alcohol service to anyone in this province so if you asked me for a drink like that if you were 18 I would still say no. So to parents and kids who read this blog, don’t let your kids ask for drinks, it is not funny or cute to the server, it just pisses me off and wants me to get you out of their faster than letting me dazzle you all night long.

Now to the adults of the post…

I still have no idea how people get to the age of 30 and above and still have no clue about table manners. To be honest my parents taught them to me before I ever went out to eat in a restaurant. If I didn’t use a fork I was rapped across the knuckles with a knife. Yeah it hurt and yeah it is child abuse now, but it sure as hell did the trick I tell ya. When I went out to eat I was a perfect gentleman and server’s always commented to my parents how well behaved me and my brother were. So for those of you people who come out and cut the server off when they are trying to tell you something, or if we are asking you how you are doing today, “Coffee” is not an acceptable answer to “Hi, how are you folks doing today.” Table manners are not a lost art, and being polite is something which we should all do while we are out eating.

Stay tuned this week guys, Stampede starts tomorrow and the city comes alive with the spirit of the old west. You know what that means, rednecks descend upon the city like a cloud of locusts.

As well if any of you would like to pick up a book on manners, this is just one of the books which I have read, you can find it on Chapters.com for the price of $12.54

How to be a Gentleman.