Ozymandias Dines at Hardees

Push Comes to Shove in Saluda, Virginia, Restaurant

Sighing softly (mercy, what a messy day!), I fastened my eyes on the suspended menu before me as my seemingly equally depressed cashier regarded me with a kind of dull expectation. But before I could stake my claim to a "regular roast beef combo" (which it turns out they don't have, by the way, only a "big roast beef combo") I found leisure to observe an irritating pressure against my lower back, as if a pair of small hands were urging me forward toward my server -- a wholly unnecessary exercise, as it happened, considering that my jacket-clad stomach was already flush with the freakin' counter! What, I asked myself, could possibly be going on? I mean for goodness' sake (or rather I MEANT for goodness' sake)! Of course, I immediately suspected shenanigans on the part of a child customer behind me, not only thanks to the diminutive nature of the hand imprimatur upon my back, but thanks also to the giggles (followed quickly by parental admonitions) that were emanating, or so it seemed, from the same quarter as the attack itself.

Meanwhile the dull expectation of the cashier to which I have previously alluded was giving way to impatience as I struggled between the task at hand (ordering food) and my attempt to mentally identify the enemy to my rear -- for I had no intention of rewarding the latter's belligerence by turning around and glaring at him or her, lest they think they had achieved their apparent goal of getting on my nerves. (Humph! Homey don't play that.) Fortunately however, this Mexican standoff came to a quick end, when a maternal voice behind me cried: "That's not nice: apologize to the man!" I then paused for another beat, anticipating a mea culpa from a pipingly treble voice, but as no apology was forthcoming from either child or adult, I bethought myself of the cashier's impatience and decided to place my order at long last: "Regular roast beef combo, please," which, as I've mentioned, they didn't have, but the cashier then countered with the suggestion of an a la carte alternative that answered the spirit, if not the letter, of my original request. "Fine," I said, "sign me up."

Now, I says to myself, I'll see who belongs to those hands that were relentlessly urging me forward toward the counter -- for my order was ready, and I had only now to turn around to look right into the eyes (or no doubt right over the head) of the presumably little troublemaker. And sure enough, no sooner had I done a 180 when I beheld (peripherally, as it were, just below eye level) the tussled moptop of a ragamuffin tweenager half hidden behind his guardian's skirt, whence one unrepentant eye twinkled at me with a kind of merry defiance. And I was like: The very idea! I had half a mind to shake a fist in the boy's face, but fearing that the mother (despite her own apologetic demeanor on behalf of her son) might misunderstand the gesture, I took the high road and stalked back to my seat like a modern Ozymandias, "with wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command." Now, perhaps, I could at least eat my meal in peace!

But not a bit of it! For ere I had half-eaten my sandwich, the twosome had laid claim to a table two seats from my own, where the yet-unapologetic youth forgot himself again, this time becoming so noisy on the subject of trifles ("Give me my fries, PLEASE! Is that MY Coke?!!!") that his mother finally had to draw the line: "Do you want me to spank you in front of all these people?" says she. Which, I've never understood why parents say such silly things so loudly in a restaurant like that. Because I'm like: "Madam, I don't know that I particularly care to be witness to such a proceeding. Mind you, I've never been one to categorically dismiss the propriety of corporal punishment, but that doesn't mean one should 'take it on the road.' I mean, I'm trying to eat over here, okay? (Besides, this is a rural area, right? Surely you have a woodshed behind which you can beat some sense into the boy. As for the shoving incident back at the counter, for myself, I'm willing to let him off with a warning, providing I can finish the rest of this roast beef in peace!)"

I quickly finished my meal, fearful that the situation would escalate, and stalked back to my car, once again with solemn (but necessarily expeditious) pomp, on account of it was raining as hard as ever. Then, pulling back out onto the half-flooded black-top of route 17, I reflected on the incident that had transpired: "Wouldn't my readers like to know about it?" I asked myself. "After all, it was at least a somewhat atypical happenstance." To tell you the truth, however, I answered that question in the negative at the time, fearing that the anecdote was insufficiently complex to warrant its narration in a connected form; but then, reflecting that the story did, after all, speak to the modern issue of juvenile delinquency, I determined nonetheless to publish it, the moral of the story being simply that people should not push people like me in the back while they're trying to order a roast beef combo or else people might get spanked, all right? Although I'll thank the parents not to spank them in a restaurant! I mean, for goodness' sake! (Of course, it's a slightly convoluted moral, but then it's got a little something for everyone: parent and child alike.)