Sunday Evening Chat, Part I

I've decided that I'd like to take a few moments each Sunday evening (yes, even in the midst of the NFL season) to discuss something that I've been thinking about. I'll set no boundaries for these soliloquies in hopes that candid thought finds its way onto digital paper.

I've been thinking... A couple of weekends ago I was out to eat for a friends birthday at a family-style Italian joint. It was a crowded Saturday evening - restaurant packed to capacity - staff hustling through the ordered chaos that is our food industry. Everyone was in high spirits celebrating our time off and basking in the moment of each successive course. But this reveling was not destined to last this evening.

From across the cavernous dining room I heard the crash of glass breaking. No big deal, somebody's had a few too many glasses of red and their motor skills aren't obeying mental commands. Or so I thought. By the time I zoned in on the source of the interruption I could see that a large man was flipping a two-person table end over end. Because of our seating arrangement I did not immediately see with whom he was dining or if he was amongst any company at all. But in the moment he violently turned his back on the havoc he'd created, I saw a plate navigating its way through the air in a spiraling trajectory headed for the man's back. Company confirmed. In a huff the man performed another 180 and stormed back to the table. With a clenched fist and his body weight he stepped into a hay-maker aimed at the plate-tosser, and again turned to go. Collective whispering and gasping abounded in the crowded restaurant.

Only as the man rounded the corner to exit the main dining area did most patrons realize that this brute had punched a woman in the face. She remained seated in her booth, bloodied and in tears, crying perhaps not because of the pain but for the humiliation of a couple-hundred eyes as witnesses of her victimization.

In shock and disgust I watched and pondered scenarios that could have driven a couple to this violence. I felt an overwhelming yearning follow this man out of the restaurant to stomp his kidneys until he was only able to piss red, in hopes that the color would forever remind him of his propensity for punching women and serve as a deterrent to future violence.

It is my deep sentiment that society in general has come to lack respect for simple manners and age-old rules. I realize that she threw a plate at you... but you don't punch a woman in the face. And when the president is speaking you don't interrupt him, damn it! I wonder if stifling brutality as a means of justice and the softening of the eye for an eye idea is costing America her dignity. I feel ashamed when I see adults acting this way, with such deliberate disregard for decency, and wonder what propelled us to this madness. I also wonder how it can be fixed. The best solution that I could rapidly come up with was on a case-by-case basis, beginning with the lady-basher. I hope that she has a large family brimming with oversize men that show up at your doorstep when you least expect it - maybe when you're eating a bowl of icecream in your boxer shorts on a Sunday evening such as this one - and truly wreck your day.

** I add apologies for the drab entry and promise that I'll return to my happy-go-lucky self next Sunday. Remember to mind your manners, folks; their is no easier way to make the world a better place.