LUNCH PERIOD: Adults with No Table Manners are Worse than Puberty

We all remember those family dinners back in the day, eating roasted slab of meat with mashed something, or casserole-surprise-hot-dish, not talking very much about what happened that day at school, or at work, or with the preparation of the steamed carrots. Finally, though, you do get going, you find a topic worth talking about, you get animated, excited, only to be cut off with a

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

"Chew your food before you put in another bite."

"Keep your mouth closed while you chew."

"Keep your mouth closed while you talk, and don't chew with your mouth full!"

And then you all laugh at silly mom, who laughs along with you until she starts to feel a little huffy, because table manners are important, and the reason she mixes up like that is because you're eating like savages, and how would that look if you were meeting someone else's parents, or on a job interview some day, or with Steve Julius when he finally realizes how special you are and asks you out, and then sees you acting like that?

Little did you know then that this sort of logic, or at least the constant repetition of the thing, like water drip-drip-dripping away at a stone, would infiltrate your own psyche as an adult. Which is when you find out that, tragically, not everyone had the benefit of a nagging mother and a healthy dose of shame.

And you find yourself just as disgusted as she ever intimated she was.

Jesus, it does look like a cow chewing its cud, except at least with that you know all you're dealing with is wet grass and some cow puke – who knows what's roiling and moiling around in that person's mouth? It's brown, and lumpy, and, oh god, you can't even look at him/her.

But it's hard – the mannerless adult always wants eye contact, always has loads to say, always requires response, always lisps slightly in a way that flicks more and more of the churning innards of his or her mouth outwards, in death-defying leaps to the safety of the surfaces nearby, where they cling, sweaty from the exertion of escaping the loudly chomping teeth.

And you know you can't say anything about it. Really, you think you can? Tactfully, you say? Try it. I'd bet dollars to dimes that telling your adult friend that they have crap table manners will go over about as well as the time you told him/her that you hated his/her significant other, who was fat incidentally, and who was making him/her fat, too. Just not the sort of thing that you say.

Here's to praying you're not within firing range of the grown-up who didn't pay enough attention as a kid. Or that, if possible, you're making a meal out of thin soup…a silent, thoughtful meal.

Posted by Jilly