Uppity Crackers

Last Wednesday, I had a hot date. My best friend Lauren was in town and so we did what we usually do when she comes to town: go eat. So here we went; Bubba, The Kid, Lauren, Megan and me off to the Japanese restaurant and there begins our story.
We love eat Japanese food, so we thought it would be a great idea to take The Kid with us. Not such a great idea. It started out well enough. Our hostess brought us to a hibachi table that was already filled with two couples; both couples were middle-aged and already deep in conversation. We found our seats and strapped The Kid in her high chair and we were ready to go. Then he comes out. The Kid's new mortal enemy: The Evil Hibachi Cook. With a cheerful "Hello!" he turns on the grill and gets set-up. I look over at The Kid thinking she's going to be so excited by all this, but no. She was looking at the cook as if to say "I don't know who you are, but I know I don't like you". (I wonder where she learned that from...). Oblivious to the look full of hell-fire and hate that my child is giving him, the cook starts the show. He begins tossing his utensils and cracking goofy jokes, but The Kid is not easily amused. Then comes what everyone came for: the fire. If you thought that a child like mine who obviously toys with death everyday by licking her Uncle Bucky's fungus-filled flip flop, would love fire, you are sorely mistaken. The second that first fireball goes up, she starts shaking, and crying, and trying to climb me like a spider monkey on meth. Fabulous. I grab her out of her seat and she's just sobbing. That's when I notice the people sitting at the table with us. They're laughing at The Kid. No the kind of "Bless your heart,"-I'm sorry you're crying sweetheart-kinda of laugh that we give down here. It was a 'Man, that's so stupid it's funny'-type laugh. "Why?" you may ask. Well, I suppose nothing's funnier than a 10 month old who has just had her first near death experience at the hands of an evil hibachi cook. Now The Kid wasn't the only one giving out the dirty looks. ''Bad choice, jerks" I think to myself as I'm walking out to the lobby to get her calmed down.
Finally after about 5 minutes and the promise of more banana cookies, The Kid finally calms down enough to go back and join the rest of our party. You would think that since everyone's stuffing their faces, we would have some bit of peace so we can enjoy our dinner. Not so fast. Just as I'm trying to shove some teriyaki chicken in my mouth while feeding The Kid I hear the two couples sitting with us begin to strike up a conversation with each other.
Now, let me take a moment right here to clarify something. I'm a pretty easy person to get along with (I think). I have friends from all kinds of different backgrounds from all kinds of places, north and south. So when I say that these people were "Yankees", let me be clear: I don't dislike people north of the mason-dixon line; on the contrary, I love the hours and hours of entertainment I get from laughing at them. Most particularly, the way these "Yankees" think everything down here is so 'cute' and 'quaint' and that we're all a bunch of backwoods,uneducated, cousin-marrying, rednecks. Also the way that I can tell them that I think just about as much of them just by prefacing the conversation with "Well, bless your heart..." (True story, just ask Lauren).
That being said, as soon as I heard the beginning of this conversation I knew they were said "Yankees" (note the capital 'Y'). Their accent was not "Boston Kennedy" but it was far from "Minnesota Nice". So, me being the nosy person I am, and they being the loud mouths they are, I listened in. Apparently, the older couple of the two had been living down here for a while and they were giving these visitors, also in their late 40's, the inside scoop on things to do in our town.
"Oh, well, what do you guys like to do?" the older couple asks. "Well, we like to go to dinner and see a show and blah, blah, blah" says tourist dude while his wife sits there with one arm crossed sipping white wine. I swear, she had her nose so far up in the air, she would have drowned if it had started raining. Anyway, after tourist dude tells them all about how awesome him and his old lady are, the older guy starts in. He tells them about this little Italian pace that's on the square and a couple of other places then he says "Do you like burgers?". "Yeah" says tourist dude. "Well then, you've got to go to this little place called Buster's!"says know-it-all "It's kind of a dive bar, but they have great burgers!". Moron. Obviously, he's never been to Buster's. If he had, I'm sure he wouldn't have stayed long. It's that kind of place that has lots of Harleys in the parking lot and a sign on the wall that says "If you want it your way, go to Burger King". They're a no-bullshit kind of place. It's not a touristy - "oh honey, isn't this just soo cute"-kinda place. These Yankees might learn that the hard way so they may want to stay away. On second thought, let me know when they're going so I can sit there at see how this plays out.
So you may wonder where all this hostility comes from. It came from one little snicker from a couple of jerks. That's right, no one laughs at my child but me.