Four And Twenty Snotty Fingers Shoved Into MY Pie: No thanks!
Children Should Be Seen, But Not Within a Million Miles Of My Dinner, of Newport writes: Dear Westie, I love hanging out with my best friend and her hubby, however, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to keep my opinions to myself when we go out for dinner and they bring their two young children. We always order meals to be shared, but as soon as our food arrives their kids dive in with their dirty mitts and start fingering all the tasties. It’s disgusting. They’ll even take a nibble of a spring roll and throw it back if they don’t like it. And they’re always sick with something so their hands are usually covered in snot. They call themselves ‘free range’ parents and don’t believe in meting out too much discipline, which is fine in your own home, but surely children should be pulled into line when eating out? Do I leave it for a decade before I go out for a bite to eat with them again?
Oooh, CSBSBNWAMMOMD, oooh. Yuk! No one wants their best friend’s kids fingering their tasties. Dirty mitts in tasty bits just doesn’t cut the mustard. But what to do? If you spill the beans to your friends that the only kind of free-range goodies you’re interested in dining with come in packs of 12, you’ll likely never see them again, which could be one way of keeping the spring in your dinner roll. But I get the feeling you’re not the sour grapes type; you want to work through this pickle, rather than toast the friendship so, with that in mind, perhaps you could train the kids to be better dining companions. Why not start each meal with a few verses of that wonderful children’s song ‘Heads and shoulders, knees and toes, hand sanitizer!’ Alternatively, you could fake sneeze over the shared plate you’d like most to indulge in while exclaiming to the table “will this bloody tuberculosis ever go?” There may no use in crying over spilled milk, but a little gob-goo dribbled over someone’s silken tofu can work wonders.
The thing about the kind of parent who allows their children to range so freely is that they rarely afford the same freedom to other’s kids, or to other people in general. For instance, if the next time you’re out dining together, you rubbed your bottom on a plate of rice paper rolls, I’m sure there’d be at least a rumble of complaint. If you took a swig directly from a bottle of chardonnay while chewing on a bahn mi thereby turning the bottle and its contents into a high-rise snow dome, there’d be an eyebrow or two raised in surprised protest. But maybe that’s what this situation warrants. Perhaps you need to strike pre-emptively, grabbing and licking all the yummies you’d like to have an uninfected go at, yelling “mine” as you slather each one in your own salivary goodness. I’m not sure how you’d manage that with a bowl of congee, but I’d pay money to see you try. Perhaps you could then spend those dollars on a safe little something to eat on the way home. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. For one.
From last month!
In last’s month’s Dear Westie, we dealt with the issue of parking spaces and whether it is possible to reserve one simply by standing in it. Again, we hit on a pain point for many readers:
Mr R Rage of Williamstown suggests no one stands between his car and the kerb, and “a man’s parking space is his castle” which is a sad reaffirmation of the fact that real estate prices are out of control – you used to get a lot more bang for your castle-buck, back in the day. Drive By of WEFO, insists that in such situations it really is best just to drive by, which is so bleeding heart, oat-latte-in-a-recycled-cup it hurts, while Nosey Parker of Braybrook, simply wonders “why we don’t all just get along. . .” puh-lease (Ed.).
We’ve thought long and hard about this here at the Westsider and, while we thank everyone for their input, we must maintain a hardline stance on this issue for the sake of safer roads for all. Yes, you may call your shoes your ‘wheels’ but unless they are big, bold, black and chunky and are branded Goodyear or Kumho, they’ve no business being between the white lines.
If anything in this column has raised issues for you, or if there’s anything you’d like to get off your chest, write to Dear Westie via editor@thewestsider.com.au
