Sunday, July 01, 2007
Dinner and a movie
When I was in law school, I was told of a tale of a fateful trip when my moot court coach's team had to take our advisor to every single IHOP from NW Ohio to Pennsylvania. I could well imagine the hell that was for them.
So we are sitting there, waiting for our food to arrive. I am talking to the Mominator, when I see it and I hear that thump sound. A bird hit the window, and met his demise. He was lying on the ground, all dead, and the Man and I had to investigate.
What IS that, Mommy?
That sound you just heard ... that is a dead bird. He ran right into this window here.
WHY? That was stupid.
Stupid is as stupid does, Door Man.
Blank stare. So ... when's he gonna get up?
Never, dear. Never. Hey .. you know what the last thing that went through that bird's mind was?
Ok. So never waste a dead joke on a six year old. Seriously. It doesn't work. I think he is just finally getting the why is there a fence around the graveyard joke. This one .... flew right over his head. No pun intended, of course.
We return to our table where the kids' meals have arrived. The Man and Monkey hunker down into their Happy Face pancakes, and I can't get this bird off my mind. The dude in a booth by the window had gotten the giggles over the whole thing. Apparently, he has a soft spot in his heart for aviary death.
I wonder ... who is going to clean that poor bird off the sidewalk? I wonder if it was a boy or a girl? I wonder if it had a family? I wonder where my food is?
My food arrived, and my simple mind is taken away to the fact that I have a double decker BLT in front of me, along with onion rings that I knew I was going to have to guard with my life before the Man, AKA Onion Boy, got whiff of them.
I start to eat, and then I see something else out of the corner of my eye.... a hawk. I guess he had just happened to be flying over the old IHOP, saw the tasty morsel on the sidewalk, and decided to take away the job of the dewy-eyed busboy who had been told that he was on bird removal duty for the evening. That hawk picks up that bird in its talons ... and lumbers off. To a not so far away lightpole. In the parking lot. Within eyeshot of all the patrons on our side of the restaurant. To eat the bird.
All the while that the hawk is chowing down, one of my queries was answered: there was a fellow blackbird, dive-bombing the hawk as it made small business out of eating that dead bird.
My kids loved it. The Man, who doesn't have great distance vision, could just see the hawk. He couldn't make out what the hawk was doing. He left that up to the Monkey, whose senses are as sharp as a whip.
OOOOOO!!!!! That big bird is sitting up dere, eating that little birdie!!!!
Needless to say, it would have been a pretty bland and uneventful evening at IHOP had it not been for the scintillating entertainment that was offered.
Labels: eating out
posted by Knitting Maniac at 9:44 PM
I'm a mom of three peeps ... Queen Bee, The Door Man, and the Chandelier Monkey, and wife to Ace, the Helpful Hardware Man. I created this space to get away from the people known as my inlaws, and because life with three kids and a hubby is all Unexplored Territory.
The nine-year-old who seems to be growing older every minute, has an opinion and a comment for everything, and has a true servant's heart.
The seven-year-old who loves the organization of things, will someday be someone's therapist because of his kind soul, and will more than likely be living with us until he is 40 years old.
The five-year-old with the 13-year-old attitude, who has a dictator's personality, asks you to watch her all the time and say "hold on" to keep your attention, and will someday come home on the back of some dude's motorcycle with 10 tatts and a body piercing or two.
The man of the house, the fixer of things, the winner of prizes, and the only person in his family to escape the South.
and a sense of style....
Timing is everything
Yawn
On your marks ...
Think of your most embarassing moment ....
Most Likely To....
Reward systems
Condescending phone calls
And now... i can talk about it
Lip smackin' good
5 Comments:
Ahh the circle of life, is there anything finer? It sounds like you had some great dinner time entertainment.
It is never a dull time at the IHOP..there are always creatures there to gawk at Ha ha!
Nice weekend,wasn't it? Sorry I missed you yesterday girlie!
it was quite interesting....
My kids would have reacted the same way. LOL!
okay, totally loved this story! However I must say my kids would pry be poking at the poor dead birdie while eating thier flapjacks! Maybe the bird owed the hawk some feed and couldn't pay up, so the hawk threatened the bird, and the bird knowing there was no way out commited suicide?
-Spangler
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