When I write, I typically won't take shots at people.  However, I’m about to pull out what little hair that I have left completely out!

I mean, is it my imagination or are parents actually allowing their kids to act like demon spawn out in public as well as at home?  I can’t possibly be alone in thinking this.

My lovely and gracious first wife and I like to go out to eat as it’s really one of our only forms of “entertainment” that we are willing to pay for.  However, we’re beginning to think that we should take up quieter forms of entertainment like, say, standing next to jet engines while they rev up.

The reason I say this is it’s becoming the rule instead of the exception that, when we are in a restaurant, there’s always seems to be a little “Connor” or “Ashley” being allowed to “just be kids” and scream bloody murder.  One would think that the parents would be embarrassed to no end, but, NO!  They gaze affectionately at their screeching little monkeys like the paintings of Mary and Joseph gazing adoringly at the Christ-child lying in swaddling clothes in a manger. 

Note to those parents (while I paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen):  I know the Christ-child.  He’s a personal friend of mine.  And your little Connor or Ashley is NO Christ-child!  In fact, they’re acting quite the opposite and everyone in the restaurant agrees with me!  Can I get a witness?

It would be different if the restaurant was one of those creepy pizza parlors geared towards kids where some giant rat walks around, waving at everybody.  If it were, I would make sure that I didn’t sit near those pits full of plastic balls.

No.  These are decent, middle class eating establishments.

To make matters irritatingly worse, the screaming banshees also hold auditions at such places as malls, the big box electronic and grocery stores, as well as parking lots, furniture stores, coffee shops, airplanes, and, sad to say, even churches.

Parents, when are you ever going to get a clue that your kids are acting like unadulterated HELLIONS?  Really, I mean it.  They’re not “just being kids” no more than you’re “just being parents”.  Both are definitely not the case if you’re letting your “little cherubs” act like uncivilized heathens.

Please show some courtesy to your fellow human beings and make your kids behave.  Man up!  Take back the control that you’ve obviously relinquished to the little maniacs.  If you do, believe it or not, they will grow up to be happy and well adjusted human beings that other human beings can actually stand to be around.  In other words, you’ll being doing your offspring and the whole human race a huge favor.  At the same time, monkeys, demons, maniacs and banshees will appreciate not being associated with your misbehaving munchkins.

Also, by taking back your parental authority and disciplining your children, you may actually save your own life.  How?  By quashing the seeds of soulless narcissism and selfish indifference, you will actually raise a kid that won’t pull the plug on you for the sake of convenience or greed while you’re in the hospital.

Odds are, though, that, if you are reading this article (assuming that your kids will let you), you won’t identify yourself, or your kids, as being guilty of any of the above mentioned crimes against humanity.  If that’s the case, then all I can say is that, in the future, when you’re at a restaurant, and it appears that someone is praying over their food, here, in fact, is what they’re praying:

God is Great!

God is Good!

I pray those parents

Reign in their brood.

If they continue to scream

While we try to eat

We pray their be-hiney’s

Their parents do beat.

Amen