More on unruly kids....

First let me start with a question....can someone PLEASE tell me why people,....people with loads of unruly children, who have an ENTIRE restaurant to find a seat, choose to plop down as close to others as possible?  Why is this?  

So we went out to eat, as we usually do because well, we don't have much of a choice since we live on the road.  Anyway, its a buffet, so we seat ourselves.  I scoured the joint, looking for a spot (and there were plenty) a respectful distance away from other diners.  We all like our privacy whilst dining, after all.   

After finding a nice spot, we sit down and proceed to aquire our salad.  We come back to our seat and just settle in when out of nowhere there arrives mom, dad, and 3 sons.  Two boys are around the ages of 9 and 7...the third was 2.  Placing the 2 year old in a highchair, 9 year old runs off to fill his plate, dad plops down and mom and 7 year old go fill plates.  Mom returns with dad's plate, her plate, and 2 year old's plate, all heaping with greasy globs of unidentified ick.  There is actually more food on the 2 year old's plate than even I would eat.  

In the meantime, while mom is retrieving chow, 2 year old is throwing a tantrum in his chair, while dad sits in silence, ignoring the show.  Now that mom has arrived, he escalates his fit.  As they begin to feed, 9 year old opens his small container of butter and proceeds to scoop it out with his finger onto his roll.  Following that up with a proper licking out of any excess with his tongue.  He then tries to spread said butter with his fingers, giving up to use the handle of his spoon, and also giving that a good tongue lashing.  As this is going on, the screaming tot has decided that the corn on the cob is too hot, the green beans are not remotely appealing, and the heaps of fried chicken are just not edible, either.  So, he opts for his own container of butter, which he then eats half of with his fork (why you would allow a 2 year old to weild a fork I'll never know) and then lick the other half out.  Yummy.  He followed that with a couple of small bites of his roll, then washed it down with another container of butter.  Mom and dad are evidently oblivious to this action, as they are emmersed in their own gruel.  

During this show, the 7 year old is shoving in mashed potatoes as if they are candy.  He is also unaware of his older brother sprinkling a healthy shot of salt and pepper on his freshly buttered roll.  Lovely.  Suddenly 2 year old wants to eat his corn on the cob....WITH THE FORK.....one kernel at a time.  This might have seemed like a good idea in his head, but as he stabbed each kernel, he promptly flicked it off the cob into space, all the while staring at his fork in bewilderment wondering where the corn went.  After about 6 kernels, he gave up and went back to his butter.  One container had fallen onto the floor, and mom was happy to pick it up and give it back to him. 

Needless to say, we left before desert time.