When the Tables Are Turned

People tend to waist more time doing nothing in public places.  In fact, it has ranked right up there with being as American as apple pie and baseball.  Along the lines of this ideology comes a statement more stale than the candidates of the Republican Party running for President which is: “I have more time than money.” I believe that line was once coined by the sweet baby Jesus when he was told by the photographers at a JC Penney photo shoot to wait patiently in the manger with the “fam” because the Three Wise Men were caught in traffic and running late on their way to partake in the family photo called the Nativity Scene. It’s amazing how the minutes of the clock get drained like a snotty running nose to an infant, along with the settings to which this action takes place.

Just before the summer break, politicians in Washington held sessions forfeiting restful night sleep, debating intensely and put to two-thirds of a majority vote the fact that the park bench of the 21^st century is the table of a restaurant.  These stomping grounds are convenient because they are located indoors out of the cold or in a cool atmosphere away from the sun’s pelting heat rays, and when you take advantage of its comfortable setting for long periods of time you get served as if your last name was Bin-Laden.  This becomes true once the God-given, made-from-scratch fanny pack known as the rear-end has been situated in the booth and fails to leave—much like the annoying cat hair that straps itself on furniture and clothes that even the Great Houdini can’t make disappear.  Have you ever walked into an eatery where a sign was placed in the entry way that stated, “Please Wait to Be Seated”?  This is the table’s screening process which delegates the task of interviewing guests to the hostess giving her the full authority to funnel customers who use the dinner table location as its return address on mailed envelopes.   Perhaps you know somebody of this class; that whenever they walk into the restaurant, the reserved seating area throws the tablecloth over itself with speech more graphic than a Sony Playstation 3 in order to disguise it from clingy chow citizens as if it’s a scared child pulling the sheets over themselves after seeing scary mirage objects.  When the table says a prayer and does the sign of the cross in hopes that the length of time you eat your meal would not be equivalent to the amount of timed protection offered by Colgate Total in a day, you have a problem.  When the gap in time between visits lasts as long as one of Oprah’s diets, you have a problem.  If the table bets with you a point spread on sporting events so much that it’s nicknamed “Pete Rose” and the stakes are annulled visitation rights, you have a problem.  When converting the table into an office complex because you expense its visit often to the IRS, and when ordering, the table responds by saying to the server, “From the desk of…” you have a problem.  If the amount of time you spend at the table supersedes the amount you spend at the restaurant, therefore, causing its posture to hunch over and lean more than a political view of Rush Limbaugh, you have a problem.  At night when the chairs are set upside down on the restaurant’s table top, and the upward pointing legs serve as an “I” vote in order to have your presence blacklisted, you have a problem.   Yes, it is a free country.  And yes the signers of the Declaration of Independence had you in mind when they penned their “John Hancock” on the document making it possible for you to freely plant your booty at the restaurant table for an extensive period of time as if it’s a parked R.V. at a campground, but when the booth compares your butt imprint to that of a movie star’s hand print on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you then need professional help.

So tonight when you say “Grace,” say a little prayer for the table to which you sit. Ask that its guest would be quick and few like the number of episodes it took for ABC to realize that “The Middle” was a ticking time bomb to its network.