At various points in the evening, practically everyone in the mid-sized, mid-town restaurant turned to look at the woman and her companions. Not because they were particularly well-dressed or unusually attractive, especially by Manhattan standards. But when the overly-made-up blonde threw back her head to laugh, it was a little too loud; and every few minutes, the cellphone belonging to one of her companions would emit a jarringly loud ring, inevitably triggering an extended conversation easily overheard by anyone within a three-table vicinity.

Even the coldest of winds blowing outside the restaurant on that blustery winter night couldn’t match the chill of the glares directed toward the woman and her companions, who remained either blissfully oblivious to the level of annoyance their behavior was causing or, as seemed increasingly likely, didn’t care in the least.

Despite my best efforts, their boisterous conduct eventually managed to impact my own mood and evening, leading me to join my fellow diners in shooting icy glares at the diners to absolutely no avail.

I left the restaurant with a hunger for a smackdown that went unfulfilled.

Fastforward a week or two. Another restaurant, another racous group of diners, another group of neighboring tables being disturbed by peals of loud laughter and excited exclamations.

This time, I was seated much closer to the action… right in the middle of it, in fact. I’d been out for drinks with friends and we’d decided to stop in one of our favorite restaurants for something to eat. Thanks to the good time already in progress — not to mention several rounds of cocktails — we had unwittingly become “those people.”

We were now the people at the next table.

The ones who had annoyed me only a week earlier with their loud conversation and fun-fueled frolicking. We were cackling wildly at our own jokes as we drunk dialed a friend and tweeted every thought that entered our alcohol-soaked brains.

And never did it occur to us that we’d become Those People, at least not until it was much too late and the cold glares I’d reserved for others were now being directed toward me and my fellow diners.

Like many who wind up on the receiving end of looks that could, but don’t, kill, it wasn’t our intention to disturb anyone. And had we been able to step outside ourselves and witness the scene from another perspective, I’d like to think we’d have been mortified… or at least mollified.

But the next time you’re in a situation where a tableful of diners are having a little more fun than you might like them to be having, instead of looking upon them with anger, smile and remember that almost every single one of us has been, at one point or another, in their place.

We’ve all been the people at the next table.

Today’s guest post comes from Nina, the webmistress and master of ceremonies over at http://www.blogitoutb.com. Nina is a mother, wife, student, entertainment junkie and farter of fairy dust.

It’s that time of year. High school seniors are taking a major step in their journey from teenage shenanigans to responsible adulthood… although for many, the next stop will be a four-year, alcohol-soaked, debauched detour known in some circles as “college.”  

Graduations all feature guest speakers designed to inspire the hopeful graduates and prepare them for the world that awaits them. The audiences are filled with family and friends bursting with pride. So much so, in fact, that some cannot contain themselves.

Last week, here in Atlanta, several families were forced to leave a high school graduation ceremony by the police department because their cheering became too loud. Some of you may think this was a little severe, but I ask that you consider this:

The audience had been asked to contain their applause until all the graduates’ names had been called. Now, we’ve all attended and/or participated in a graduation. Those things are long and boring even to the most excited graduate. Holding your applause allows the ceremony to move along quickly. Also, what about the poor kids who don’t have a massive cheering section in attendance, but maybe a single parent or elderly set of grandparents?

 I know that some applause is to be expected. Hell, some parents are so happy to see that little Mikey actually graduated and isn’t dead or in jail that they just can’t help themselves. But that isn’t the kind of situation we’re talking about here.

People in attendance who were videotaping the event released the footage to the media and the reprimanded families had been warned to keep it down, and they didn’t. They continued to hoot and holler and pretty much act a fool. How is this fair to the other people in attendance who might, I don’t know, want to hear their own child’s name called?

When interviewed, some of the removed family members were outraged and wondered if the Atlanta Police didn’t have any other places to be. Sure, in a perfect world there’s a platoon of cops right around the corner from any crime about to happen, but the world isn’t perfect and those cops were assigned to make sure things at the graduation didn’t get out of control and they did their jobs.

Perhaps these adults should have followed the rules and thought about the example they were setting for the graduates on the stage. What say you?

Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude or put too fine a point on it, but I feel I have to ask: What the HELL are you doing here?

That’s what I wanted to say to a handful of the people surrounding me during what should have been a lovely, relaxing evening last night.

Several hundred people were at the Highline Ballroom to hear the gorgeous song stylings of Katie Melua.

Four or five were there to ruin the experience for everyone else. To them, I say, at least on my own behalf, Mission: Accomplished.

As I sat there with three of my closest friends enjoying the concert, the drunk man standing behind me had a series of increasingly loud conversations. He was asked by me and several others to keep quiet. But of course, he didn’t listen, and things rapidly progressed to the point where another agitated member of my party was ready to take the guy out, physically and literally, and I sought a manager to have the guy kicked out, which he eventually was.

Then there was the loud, obnoxious, foreign fans.

Why is it that oftentimes, a performer’s biggest fans are the most obnoxious?

In this case, there were two sects. First, there were the photographers, including two young men who spent the entire show taking pictures and then showing them to one another and laughing, giggling, comparing notes loudly. Then there was the group of women who kept screaming out song unwanted song requests and phrases in Russian (which the singer speaks)… and then talking through each number she performed. Two of the women at several points got onto their cell phones to have loud conversations and, when asked if they might take the conversation outside the venue, glared as if they’d been asked to put the phones into their va jay-jay’s.

To all of these people I’d like to ask, again: What the hell were you doing there? Why did you feel the need to ruin the evening for people who’d not only bought tickets but then, in many cases — including that of my group — spent several hundred dollars on food and drink – in an attempt to have a pleasant, civilized evening on the town?

What gave YOU the right to ruin OUR evening?

And why, if you intended to spend the night talking or being rowdy, did you not go to a bar as opposed to a showroom where people had obviously and specifically gone to see the performer in question? This was not a rock concert or a piano bar, this was a quiet, simple performance… a woman, her guitar and her piano.

By the end of the evening, one of my companions was mad at me for making a big deal of the situation (although, in my defense, by the time I had the most offensive party removed from the venue, he’d begun flicking water at my head and calling me some rather nasty names) and it’s safe to say that the entire evening was ruined for my entire party.

And that leads me to these quetions:

Have we gotten to the point where one can no longer venture out into society without expecting to have to deal with rude people who don’t give a rat’s ass if they ruin the evening of those around them?

Are the 95 percent of us who want to sit through a movie without someone behind us taking a cell phone call or talking loudly simply expected to sit in (the shattered) silence rather than complain, if only for fear of being physically attacked?

In any case, next time a performer I want to see comes to town, rather than risk spending a small fortune only to have my evening ruined by the rude, crude and socially unacceptable folks of the world, I’ll stay home and listen to the performer’s CD’s.

I serve better drinks at my place anyway.

SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP – this has become my mantra. Every single day, you chitter and chatter and mumble to yourself from the office next door. I know you know I can hear you, because just as I am about to reach that zen place of ignoring you, you call my name and ask me a stupid question.

So I’m sitting on the bus, and texting, and I turn mute on so the girl across from me doesnt have to hear my clicking keys. Five minutes later, she starts playing her radio (if there were headphones, i didnt see them and it certainly didnt help!). I was like, seriously? I looked a coupla times, to see if I could shame her into turning it down, but no. She was shameless. I wanted a vaporizer. (Like to vaporize her, not so I could breathe)

Bundles of joy or emisary’s of evil?

 

 

 

I suppose it depends on your viewpoint. But since this is my page, I’m going with the latter. Feel free to comment to the contrary, but first, here me out. Because there’s a good reason why I despise your terrible tykes… several, actually.

1) They can’t be controlled. As spring approaches, I’m preparing to spend another torturous season of asking – and eventually warning – your children not to play in my driveway, bounce their ball against my house or pick vegetables out of my garden. Okay, sure, I don’t have a garden, but you get my point. I come off seeming like the block’s crazy curmudgeon simply for asking that my property not be treated like a playground for your kids. Why? Because I have no doubt that the second one of them trips and falls, y’all are gonna try and sue my butt.

2) They’re loud. I defy any willingly childless person – or even those who had kids who are now blissfully grown and out of the house – to tell me that they don’t flinch when parents with a caterwalling creature sit at the table next to you in a restaurant, or behind you on a plane. Yes, I know, they are children and that is what children do. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. And unless you’re the only parent on the planet who has never had to suppress the urge to scream “shut the hell up” at your own child, I don’t wanna hear any flak from you.

3) They’re rude. Tonight while shopping in a bookstore, I watched two pre-teens call a only-slightly-older boy “fag” as he tried to flip through a copy of The Advocate. Good job, boys. You just drove that guy so far into the closet that he’ll no doubt remain there until five or six years into his marriage, at which point he’ll finally get past the trauma and destroy the “happy” home he’s created. Worse, the mother of the big-mouthed kids laughed at their antics. I hope she understands the irony when her son and his pal being “experimenting” with one another.

 

 

 

4) They bore me. Sorry, but I just don’t want to hear about Epiphany’s potty training or Mandarin’s soccer game. Pictures won’t help.

5) They make you boring. See #4, but remember when we used to talk about how hung over we are while trying to piece together what we did the night before.

6) They took you from me. I have friends who I only see when they are accompanied by their children. I have to go to them. Their children join us on every trip (which, to me, assures the vacation will be anything but relaxing). They forced you to give up that cool sportscar for a minivan.

So now maybe you can understand why I’m not so fond of your kids. Maybe if someone had taken them aside and taught them to be polite to not only their elders, but everyone… or that screaming isn’t the best way to communicate their needs… or that boundaries are to be respected… or that… Oh, wait… holy crap… I don’t hate your kids… 

 

 

 

… I hate you. 

Never mind.

Today’s post comes to us from special guest Totally Tyler, who believes that there are good children and good parents in the world… just not nearly enough of them. To submit a guest column, please see the Contact Us page. You can follow todays writer on twitter at totally_tyler. 

My office-mate gripes whenever I don’t close the door, but he himself habitually leaves it open behind him, allowing the sonic flotsam of the outeroffice to disrupt my precious thinkamating. I think that’s rude, don’t you?

To the incredibly loud guy sitting in starbucks right now who is laughing like a hyenna, burping, having a wildly loud phone conversation and just generally disturbing everyone around him: Thanks for that. Guess given the price of coffee here, we should be grateful for the show!

I’m sitting at an Internet cafe, because for all of the talk on pretentious people “working”, I’m usually a hell of a lot more productive out of the home than in it
I mind my own business, I keep headphones on. When someone sits down, I, generally, move my stuff out of the way. I have even been known to assist wayward people on how to connect their computers to the wireless connection.

Rarely do people’s quirks get on my nerves, so, quite possibly I’m allowing the sinus headache to infiltrate my mood, but a man sat down next to me. For a while, he was gone –  left his laptop and just took off. This was after he took an entire phone call sitting right next to me and proceeded to continue speaking to the girl after he hung up with her. (That I know it was a girl indicates how familiar the public conversation was…) When he came back, about an hour later, he sat down and put in his headphones and started humming.

I’m not talking about under the breath humming or even humming along with the music playing over the loudspeakers of the cafe. I’m talking about humming so loudly that I can hear him through the music I now have turned up EXTREMELY high on my own laptop and my own headphones.

Is it just me, or is this rude? I mean, I’ve got Defying Gravity going full blast and if I’m at home, I’ve been known to attempt a song or two along with my music, but in public, I just figure it’s a general polite no-no.