A scene from a restaurant

Amy, Nicole, who was visiting for a few days, a friend of ours called Puck and myself went to dinner the other night at a Friday's.

Across from our table, about 5 feet away were two men, one older and one in his thirties, a woman also probably in her thirties, and a baby in a high chair. During the course of the meal, I think around the appetizer or so, and completely out of nowhere, the woman gets up out of her chair and goes "Fuck you, Dad! I'm not gonna sit here and listen to your bullshit!" During this, she is attempting to get her baby out of the high chair, which isn't going so well. This then forces the woman to forcibly remove the baby from the high chair, while the baby is crying because its legs are still stuck in the chair. The woman is pulling so hard that she is lifting the chair off of the ground, baby still attached. Finally, she removes the baby, still crying, and storms off.

The older man, presumably the father, starts rambling off profanities about how he's "not gonna take this anymore," while the other man, apparently the woman's husband and father of the baby, just sits there quietly.

Oh, I forgot to mention the table directly behind the outburst that is filled with three small children and their grandparents, having what was an enjoyable meal, but now a disturbing one.

The woman then storms back to the table, and goes, "No no no no no - don't act like that!" The husband/babyfather begins to stand up, and the woman stops him. She says, "No - I'm not taking you home!" The man quietly sits down, being the enabler that he is (I mean, come on - how do you not react to that?). The rest of their meal is spent with the older man quietly rambling off profanities and complaints while the husband silently listens. From what I heard from the conversation is that the older man is from out of town and is visiting the husband and wife and baby. The older man offers to give the husband some cab fare. The husband, who doesn't outright accept the offer, asks where the older man is staying. "At this hotel," is the reply.

The husband didn't say it, but the message was clear to me. The husband was trying to say, "Cab fare won't do me any good because I obviously can't go home right now. Can I go to your hotel with you, possibly crash there?"

Amy was sitting on the inside of the booth, and it was a good thing because she was obviously perturbed by what was going on, since she is a licensed social worker. She was appalled at the mother ripping the baby out of the high chair. I would've been pissed if I were the grandfather of the three small children directly behind the table.

Eventually we finished our meals and I felt that we were lingering too long, having paid the bill (or rather, Amy paying my bill because although I now have a job, I don't get paid until next Friday, thus rendering me still broke until then.) and gotten the receipts back. I hinted several times that I was ready to go, because the place was filling up and we'd already been sitting there post-bill for 15 - 20 minutes. Puck then jokingly goes (quietly, of course, as the participants of the scene were still there), "Fuck you, Dad." We all laugh a little and then he goes "I should just pick Jeff up and storm out." And we all laughed really hard.

The moral of the story is: The Sizzling Chicken & Shrimp dish is excellent.