linusvanpelt

Tell me if this is weird. A few nights ago I was at Ruby Tuesdays (I fully admit to a love of chain restaurants--that's not the weird part) with a friend and he asked me how my sister's kids (triplets, aged five) were doing. I told him fine but that they can really drive you crazy. I said, in a normal "inside voice" level (I am not known for being loud and/or boisterous) that little kids can push your buttons, they know they can push your buttons, and that they, in fact, enjoy pushing your buttons to get a rise out of you. I then said I understood where the anger can come from to want to hit a kid. I then, important to the story, said that while wanting to hit a kid is probably normal, it would definitely not be OK to actually act upon that feeling. This woman from the next table then turned to my table and said "Could you keep it down?" This threw me since I was, as mentioned, speaking in library level tones to start with. "You're talking about how its ok to hit kids, and that's not cool," she said, quite annoyingly. Well. I simply replied, in my normal measured respectful tone, that that was not at all what I said. She then mumbled something and turned back around.

Why do people only hear what they want to hear? I am pretty sure what I said was on the safe side of offensiveness (again, I specifically said hitting a kid is wrong). Her self-righteous tone was quite an irritant. My only hope is I ruined the rest of her evening (probably spent going to see, like, The Hunger Games which depicts teens killing each other). People who make snap judgements and then feel secure calling other people (strangers no less) out on it kinda sorta sickens me. I mean, it's Ruby Tuesdays, not exactly the proper venue for serious discourse.

I did fight the urge once she turned around to mockingly say that it would be OK to kick a kitten, but her boyfriend looked kinda big and bikery and I admit to an unwillingness to get popped in the mouth. It was definitely sort of a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" moment.