When My Rules Are Not Your Rules

My mother was to celebrate yet another birthday – she has had a lot of practice. We were invited to help celebrate it at a simple restaurant – lunch time. My cautious father made it clear that this was their treat – none of his descendants were to try to pay for any portion of the bill. He had done his budgeting. He is a principled, disciplined man with a great eye for detail.

We arrived last, carrying gifts and bits and pieces for exchange and greeted all of our excited relatives one by one – parents, brothers, nieces and nephews, more of a clan than a family. We found seats, called waiters, moved tables together – all chattering and joking and teasing. It was time to distribute menus and get a drinks order in.

Now you have to remember that according to my father, there is a correct way in which to do all of this. You must always be very considerate, you must never disturb other people in the restaurant and you should also never disturb the waiters. There should be quiet and a suspension of conversation while orders are placed, you should know exactly what you want in advance, you should speak slowly and clearly and you should ensure that you have been acknowledged and understood.

You should under no circumstances change your mind or order anything that is not standard. You do not start with new-age stuff like “I will have the Montego Pizza, but without the garlic and with extra avo.” If the restaurant wanted you to have this combination, it would have put it on the menu. You should not start with this nonsense of saying how much ice you do or don’t want in your drink, or what kind of glass you want. That is the restaurant’s prerogative and you shouldn’t interfere. He grew up in an era when you ate whatever was put in front of you and said thank you afterwards even when you got food poisoning.

Now it became clear very quickly that my father’s own progeny, after over thirty years without his direct supervision, had started to abandon some of these universal rules – and they had most certainly been far less diligent than he had in the education of their subsequent progeny. In fact it became clear too that he was losing his grip on his own wife, and that she had had her gentle, disciplined ways polluted by her own unruly family.

Cousins were catching up with each other, Granny was being nagged to open presents, cell phones were being scanned for real time messages and replies were being thumbed. While all of this was happening, a waiter was patiently circulating collecting drinks orders. He was being asked questions and being given instructions – and with all of the general chaos, my father was unable to follow each interaction himself to ensure that every family member was conducting themselves according to the universal rules of a restaurant.

He was losing control. His day was deteriorating.

Things spiralled rapidly downwards from then on.

When the waiter returned some of the drinks were wrong and needed to be sent back, one order was omitted, some were with ice, others did not have ice. By now my mother had started to open presents – always a very slow process with her gnarled hands and bent fingers – also with eager sharp young fingers always threatening to pull gifts away from her to do it faster. The talking was incessant.

Then the waiter started asking for main orders. Some had read the menu. Others were not yet ready, telling him to come back to them which meant that the order would be taken out of order (breaking another rule). Some were vegetarians, others had likes and dislikes – two wanted to know if things were gluten free – they had to be gluten free. Things had to be grilled, not fried. And through all of this my mother bravely ploughed on with the presents. Paper was piling up, exposed gifts were being passed around and examined, thank yous were being said and there was extra traffic around the table as descendants got up to receive and give kisses of thanks. It was impossible for my poor father to monitor every detail.

He was issuing instructions to his family and to the waiter, “Speak slowly, speak louder, it is your turn, that is not on the menu, stop distracting him, did you get that, pay attention, did he acknowledge your order, one at a time, you have already ordered – if you change your mind you will confuse him”.

And then the waiter was gone – and my mother had not placed her order. She had not being following the universal rules and she had been engrossed in her unwrapping when her turn had come and gone.

The planet gave a slight shudder, the birds paused in flight, the temperature rose. It was a disaster – and all totally avoidable if we had just followed the rules. I offered to jump up and find the waiter, my brother said not to worry – he would be back and some of the clan seemed not to care. They went back to the conversation and to the cell phones monitoring – breaking yet another code carved in stone.

A very dark cloud now descended over my father, his lips turned even bluer, his shoulders slumped and he started reaching for his handkerchief to mop his brow. I solicited my mother’s order, got up, chased after the waiter and brought him up to speed. The whole process to correct the omission took under a minute – but with the world having slowed down to absorb the full impact of the deviation from the rules – it felt like ten.

My father, now withdrawn, sullen and depressed, turned away from his disappointing, wayward family and started to give his hawkish attention to the tables around us. It was mayhem. There was a baby in a baby seat on a table – very near the edge of the table. There was a young man sitting inside, at a meal table, with a cap on his head. Piles of people had their shirts un-tucked, children were moving around the restaurant, people were moving their own tables without the permission of the waiters, drinks were being slurped, some were using their knives and forks incorrectly, others talked while they chewed.

“Look at his cap,” said my father. “They never take them off. That is why there are so many homosexuals.”

“Times change,” I said, “And habits change. You used to have some pretty bad habits which are now unacceptable. And what is wrong with homosexuals? And how can a cap possibly have any connection to someone’s sexual orientation?”

“What bad habits did we have?”

Now I could see that he was up for an argument. “Like smoking,” I replied, “Everywhere and anywhere.”

“Nonsense,” he said, “We were always considerate.”

“You always smoked in the car with us in the back seat,” I reminded him.

“You were children,” he explained, sealing the argument. Children didn’t have too much say forty years ago.

“And Dad – there were plenty of homosexuals in your day.”

“Like whom?”

“Like Cecil Rhodes and Baden Powell.” (This was a low blow because these were both icons of virtue and leadership is his view.) “Come to think of it – the Cub Scouts wear caps – maybe there is something in what you say?”

He could see that this was going nowhere. He turned his attention back to the moral decay surrounding him in the restaurant.

The meals were finished and no-one could bear the thought of ordering sweets. I cleverly offered to go into the shop portion of the restaurant and buy ice-creams for the takers. There were lots of orders and offers of help to come and fetch them. My mother wanted a Magnum – her favourite thing for once in a blue moon. I escaped and left my father to supervise his anarchic clan as well as he could. Things seemed to be settling down, plates were being cleared, wrapping paper was being gathered, gifts were back in bags, doggie bags were being ordered.

I brought the ice creams back to the table and these were peeled and consumed with much enthusiasm and claims of which make was nicer.

It was time to pay and leave – this hurdle was negotiated, trips were made to toilets, the general trek to the car park started. My mother moves extremely slowly and without too much attention to her surroundings. We herded around her keeping her safe from cars and other families while she kept on talking and enthusing.

“Hurry up,” my father demanded, “We are going to be late.”

“Late for what?” we chorused.

“For the people still wanting to phone and speak to your mother for her birthday. I told them that we would be home at 3pm. She could have spoken to all of them, but she takes too long and talks too much to each one. I keep telling her to hurry up because more people are trying to phone and the signal is engaged.”

“Dad, they can leave a message, and Mom can return the calls in her own time,” was the answer.

“Well that’s not what I told them. Hurry up – we can’t be late.”

Everyone ignored the old guy – they joked and teased as we all found our own cars. There were negotiations to be conducted to see who was going to tip the car guards, there were presents to be placed in car boots and final greetings. My mother had to be helped into a car which was too high for her arthritic legs.

I watched all of these proceedings with a warm glow – everyone was energetic, enthusiastic, promising to see each other soon. The family was happy and cheerful – except for my old father. He was stressed, he was irritated, he was disappointed and he was unpleasant. He had had a horrible outing. The same outing that had been so happy for everyone else.

It occurred to me that the only unhappy person for the past two and half hours was the one who was trying to control the others. It was the one who was holding all of the patrons and staff of this rustic restaurant to a set of strict rules which only he knew about. No-one had harmed another person, no-one had been rude or stolen anything – on the contrary. The waiters had laughed and joined in, strangers had greeted and shown respect and humour. I am sure that the friends queuing up to phone their greetings were quite happy to leave messages – in fact, given my mother’s penchant for long rambling conversations there may well have been some who were distinctly relieved.

My father had tried to share his unhappiness but the family has learned to ignore him when appropriate – an approach which took many years to mature. We refused to join his particular party that day, and we held our own.

It is a real pity that he, and so many other people with their needs to control people and events around them, cannot see how to join the party.