To the hipster couple spooning in the corner booth
Put your f**ing shoes on
This is not your living room
And no one wants to see you force your tongues
Through each other's spacers
To the couple with five kids under the age of nine
Plus one on the way
Stop having babies
But if you insist on having babies
Stop bringing them to my restaurant to grind an entire box of cheerios
Into the carpet while you smile and pretend I'm not the one who has to clean this sh** up
To the fat guy who just sh** all over our bathroom
Really dude?
Really?
To the old women who have complained about everything
The music is this loud because you're in a bar
The co*ktails are so expensive because prices have gone up
Since you started drinking in 1933
It's so cold in here because you're dying
And that's what it feels like
To the young woman crying softly at the center table
We're all staring
Please, take your steak knife
And drive it through the outstretched palm
Of the boy across from you
Otherwise, everyone in this restaurant will watch him leave you
He will smile coldly
Wish you well
And walk out the door without paying the bill
Do not let this happen
Dump your drink in his lap
And shatter the pint gla** against the side of his face
Hands heal
Pride does not
Do not give him the courtesy of believing this doesn't hurt
Freak out
Like his words are spider colony erupting out of his mouth
Freak out
Like you're a hipster who just discovered we don't serve PBR here
Freak out
Like you're a couple with too many kids who all started choking simultaneously on cheerios
Freak out
Like a fat guy just sh** all over your bathroom
Freak out
Like you're an old woman who discovered too late that the chardonnay you've been drinking is eleven dollars a gla**… And poison
Freak out
Because your ex-boyfriend is a coward
Who brought you to a sh**ty restaurant to tell you
He no longer loves you
Because he learned from some scene in some movie
That you make less of a scene
That your shame would keep you quiet
That our stares would make this easier on him
Prove him wrong
Light the table on fire
Shatter his teeth with your dinner plate
Grab him and drag him screaming into the kitchen
Press his hands up against the heat lamp
You are worth more than the fifteen minutes he spent embarra**ing you tonight
Make him remember
Badly
The day he left you
And maybe next time
When he finds himself reaching across the table
For a woman he no longer loves
He'll remember
There are some things you just don't do
In restaurants