BOOMER ENTERTAINMENT: A NICE RESTAURANT

Boomer entertainment starts with a dinner plan.

Eat in, get take out, or sit at a tiny table in a ritzy restaurant.

Which one is more entertaining for the long marrieds who’ve heard each other’s stories over and over and over as one of them likes reminding the other.

“I’ve heard every story you’ve got more times than I can remember.”

More than they can remember, or more than they care to remember?

Reminder: When someone tells you the same story over and over, don’t remind them. Just tell a story you’ve told over and over and wait for the other person to say, “You’ve told that story over and over.”

That’s pure boomer entertainment, or passive-aggressive annoyance.

Same thing?

 

Boomer Entertainment Date Starter

Wife: I’m thinking of dinner.

Me: We’ve got sausages and sauerkraut.

Wife: Let’s go to the Bistro for fish.

Me: Or the fish market for take out.

Wife: They have live music at the restaurant.

Me: Great. Some ‘has been’ or ‘never was’ keeping the dream alive.

Wife: I wonder what that’s like?

Me: If you’ve got the gear you have to use it; using it makes you a musician.

Wife: Like doing a blog makes you a writer.

Me: Call me a writer, a blogger, a chronicler, an historian, a recorder, the voice of my generation. Play that a guitar, work that keyboard. It’s all in the fingers and brain for both.

Wife: I’d call you a musician and a writer.

Me: Thanks, honey. Let’s get a gig. We’ve got the song picked.

 

Main Course 

You know you’re in a fancy restaurant when the waitress introduces themselves and says, “I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”

Or is that Red Lobster?

(Click the audio file at the bottom of the page.)

You know you’re in a fancy place on a week night when there’s no ‘Special of the Day’ and a waitress with full command of the menu and time to chat.

That’s a good thing.

Two people sitting mute does not a party make.

The mute part isn’t the problem since there are a few answers to, “why so quiet” or “cat got your tongue?”

It’s either one waiting for the other to shit-talk so they can pounce all over them in righteous, verbally abusive, indignation.

Or, it’s one of them wondering why they didn’t get take-out so they’d at least have TV.

Most likely it’s a long married couple off to a slow start.

Which puts them right in the wheelhouse of skilled wait-people in fancy restaurants:

Show Time!

 

It wasn’t heavy on fish because it’s a place called a ‘Restaurant Gastromique’ in France and Belgium.

Instead of a set menu, the chef/owner and waitress/wife/owner do things chain food cooks don ‘t do, like select their own ingredients.

The experience has a more personal feel when you get to know more, and everyone knows all boomers need to know more.

Dishes featuring the usual barnyard suspects were influenced by the cuisine of Vietnam and Thailand.

There was a the pork chop of pork chops calling out.

 

Wife: This is hot.

Me: Spicy, or heat hot?

Waitress: Is it too hot, would you like something else? I’ll bring the menu.

Wife: No, I’m warming up now. Thank you.

 

Boomer Dessert

When you see older people on double dates, now you know why.

Put two people who’ve talked through their lifetime, their kids’ lifetimes, and now amping up for talking through the lifetimes of grandkids, put them at a tiny table close together in an empty room and they might be enjoying the break together.

In a highly skilled move, some couples know how to take a break from each other while they’re doing things and going places together.

Sitting like a couple of stiffs is what it looks like.

If you’ve ever seen a couple sit like that, they’re either taking a short break in public, or ending their marriage.

My parents kept a quiet tension between them, daring each other to speak with their silence, before they got divorced.

I’m married longer than they were.

I tell my wife things like, “I’m taking the afternoon off from marriage.”

It means I’m not talking much and answering questions with a “Mmm” or “Mmm hmm” acknowledgment.

What does ‘taking marriage off for the afternoon ‘really mean?’

I don’t know, but here’s what I did: The exact same stuff I always do, but quieter.

At least that’s the plan. It goes astray when the other person thinks you’re ‘holding your feelings in.’

I reminded her why I never do that.

Since I had the afternoon off I felt like giving a teachable moment:

 

Lesson Plan

Verbal Abuse vs Profane Vocabulary

 

In my experience, verbal abuse is profanity laced accusations and observations hurled directly at you.

And only you.

And you are the judge of whether or not you’re being verbally abused, not the other person.

“I was verbally abused by professionals,” said everyone who has had Drill Sergeants or Drill Instructors.

Those people go to school to learn how to be more verbally abusive, and they love their jobs.

But there are more ways to verbally abuse someone than, “I’d drop your sorry assed motherfucking waste of space shit for twenty but you’d have to sue those toothpicks you call your goddamn arms for non-support. But I fucking will. Hit it.”

If profanity, degrading, and awful words are used to describe you, your family, where you come from, your manners, your education, and the true champion of verbal abuse: Yo Momma, then it’s just some foulmouthed jerk looking to get a rise.

To all married people:

When you feel like being a foulmouthed jerk looking to get a rise, take your marriage off for the afternoon.

How do I know this is good boomer entertainment advice?

Ask someone who has taken a few marriages off.

They’d know better than me.