Travel Soccer- Saturday Night Dinner

I was going to do a journal entry each day for this past weekend where we attended an out-of-town soccer tournament in Dayton, Ohio but I decided to write by topic. Here is what I wrote Saturday morning. For anyone new reading my blog, I have an 8-year-old and 12-year-old in soccer and both are very good. I wish I could say they got this talent from me. However, I can barely put a bite of food in my mouth without missing and hitting my cheek.

On Saturday my husband took my 12-year-old to his team dinner while I took my 8-year-old to his.

Saturday Dinner

The restaurant for C’s dinner was the Rusty Bucket. There were 20 of us and they put us in a room with another huge party. Thanks to the acoustics and the lively chatter of both groups, a Boeing 747 taking off would have been quieter. We had to scream to hear each other and there wasn’t even a band playing.

Now for anyone that doesn’t have children, let me explain what happens when you put 10 children, all under the age of 10, in a restaurant that isn’t Chuckie Cheese. They become baboons. You have an 8-year-old, swinging on a stanchion rope while a pre-schooler is doing back to back cart-wheels next to the waitress station. A 9-year-old is taking every crayon he can find, using the menu as his cutting board and chopping each of them into 3 stubby crayons. One boy is standing on one of the four club chairs in front of the fire-place and 3 others have their hands pressed up against the fire-place glass, leaving behind a trail of Doritos dust and snot smears.

I look over to find my son has begun to saw his own crayon in half. I shoot him a death look while shaking my head back and forth. I haven’t mastered my parent’s death glare where additional motion of the head is not needed, but I’m working on it.

“What?” He asks, throwing his hands up completely flustered, as if it were completely normal to guillotine crayons.

“Just don’t,” I yell-whispered.

And why can’t children just can’t stay in their chairs? Suddenly your child has a manic episode and in lieu of cleaning the house like Single White Female, your being bombarded with:

“Can I go to the bathroom?” 

“Can I get a sucker up front?” 

Can I walk around?” 

Our Waiter

Our waiter Landon, was annoyed and disgusted from the minute we arrived. Clearly, Landon thought better of himself and was convinced he was a Garcon in a fine French restaurant. Not a waiter serving chicken fingers and wedge salads to soccer moms.

“How do you want to do the checks?” My friend NC, asked Garcon Landon.

“It would be better for me,” he said in a nasally, snooty voice, “if everyone sat together based on what check you’re on.” He then paused and added arrogantly, “I’ve been doing this for years. I’m kinda an expert.”

“Uhh, well that’s not happening,” she retorted in her adorable Southern twang. “The kids are sitting together and the parents together.” She said with finality and walked away. Landon held this against us for the rest of the night.

Landon was a dick. At one point, instead of asking, “ma’am, can I fill your water for you?” He fucking nudges me on my arm and points at my glass.

‘I’m sorry, are you a mute?’ I thought. I didn’t want Landon to spit in my French onion soup so I let this go and handed him my glass.

In an effort to make the food come faster, I excused myself and went to the restroom. Just as I was walking in, I noticed my friend’s 2 daughters going into 1 of the 2 stalls. Someone with denim capris and Keds was in the other one.

After many minutes, Keds was still not out and the room was filling with smell of death. By now, a woman and her young daughter had come in and were waiting next to me. Because Keds was clearly having an ass explosion, I was in NO WAY going in there after her.

“You ok in there girls?” I asked my friend’s daughters, hoping they would beat Keds. “I know them,” I said to the mother waiting.

“We’re fine,” a little voiced peeped up. “She had to go first, now I’m going.”

After what seemed took forever, I made an executive decision that if the girls came out first I would use that stall. If Keds came out first, I would look like a saint and insist the mom and daughter go first and that I also wanted to make sure the girls got back to the table ok.

Yes, I am an ass hole.