It had been a pretty slow evening and I had already raked in a whopping $7 by the time my work buddy left, so when this young couple and their daughter came in, I really didn't think much of it. Things got nasty. FAST.
The little girl was probably 4 1/2, not quite 5 I don't think. She was certainly older than Isaiah by a good deal. Anyway, that little terror was one of the worst behaved kids I have seen in recent memory. And I work at two schools and a family restaurant.
She screamed at the top of her lungs, kicked her parents under the table, hollered "Nooo!" at every opportunity, and even laughed maniacally as she got her parents more and more flustered. With every misbehavior, all Mom did was say, "Please, stop!" and "Don't do that." Dad did nothing.
Now keep in mind that all the afore mentioned business was taking place from the second they sat down to the second they walked out the door. Got it? Good. Allow me to fill in the main event for you.
As I was attempting to take their order, our little princess was scratching her mother. Not like the "allow me to take care of that itch you can't physically reach" kind of scratch, but the "let's see if I can draw blood!" kind of scratching. In between ordering her chocolate malts and cheeseburgers, Mom was having to pull her arm back to keep Princess from leaving red claw marks. Meanwhile, Dad is doing and saying nothing regarding this behavior and Princess is laughing up a storm because this is really a hoot.
I move to the other side of the table to take Dad's order when suddenly, Princess realizes she has a new audience and she decides to let me in on the fun. The child reached over and pinched my arm! I took a step away, trying to keep my cool, and continued trying to get Dad's order. When she realized she hadn't fully made the desired impression, the little cherub took it a step further and raked her nails down my arm. She managed to do this twice while I calmly held my tongue and hoped one of her parents would intervene somehow, but neither of them did.
How was Princess "disciplined" for this behavior? She got to continue to act out in the way I described previously and was fed as much ice cream from Mom's chocolate malt as she wanted. Oh, and they rewarded her with a trip to the park afterwards.
At one point I actually overheard Mom say, "I just don't know what to do to get her to behave. I can't yell at her. She's not old enough to understand."
People, it was all I could do to keep from going all Supernanny on these clueless idiots. I had to keep going back into the kitchen and blow off steam before going back out in the dining room because I didn't want to get fired!
They finally left the restaurant to take Princess to play at the park, leaving me with a 10% tip and zero apologies for the red marks on my arm.
