A Fly on the Wall

On our Friday night "Date Night", the Husband and I went to dinner at Cracker Barrel. It was a pretty good departure from our normal Friday night excursion to the Outback. For those of you who don't know, Friday is "FISH FRY" day at Cracker Barrel. So, the excitement of getting to watch a whole different type of people was fun. We saw three Catholic priests dressed in full garb, plenty of young families with many kids, and a lot of older couples still enjoying their date night after decades.

Now here comes my secret confession: I like to make up back stories on people that I see in public and Husband likes to name them. He will something like, "Oh, there is Suzy." I will say, "Oh, yeah, she's been married to her husband for 50 years this coming July. They have 5 kids and FIFTEEN grandchildren. They're a little worried that their youngest is on their 10th child though. They stopped remembering the names of the new ones 5 years ago." Generally, the stories are nothing bad or insulting. Just a little fodder to keep us occupied while we're waiting for our steaks (or in this case delicious chicken fried chicken and fish!). But, this one family had me really troubled.

Picture a lady, who is around 40 years old and she is talking on her phone the whole time after her meal is ordered. Her son is about 14 and he is playing a game while waiting for his meal. The youngest is a 10 year old girl who is staring out the window the whole time. It was very obvious that there was a disconnect between them.

I hoped that things would change once this family's food arrived, but it didn't. The mother got off the phone, but she continued to check something online and text in responses. While doing that, she and her son argued over something.

A story began to develop in my mind about them. I pictured a dad who was either not living with them or gone a lot on business. I pictured the mom working a lot and the kids being frustrated over their parents not always letting them do what they wanted. I pictured a family that would go their separate ways most of the time when they got home. TV on. Computers on. Texting. Arguing over the computer use.

It was a sad picture that I had painted in my mind of this family. And I think, unfortunately, it is one that is way too common in the United States. There must be a lot of families that don't even spend enough time together to even know what the others are struggling with. Looking at this family, I could not imagine sitting at the table with my mom and either one of us sitting on the phone. I would give anything for a ten minute conversation with her, now. Even when she was alive, I rarely took for granted our time together.

The Husband and I long ago instituted a "No TV or phone calls during dinner Rule" which has now been expanded to "No TV at all". We have only so much precious time together as lives get busier and schedules get busier. I hope that these rules will help protect our family as our child(ren) get(s) older.

I don't look down on people (or think I'm superior) because we choose to try and protect our family in this way. But, I really hope that maybe this post will make others think, "What would my back story be?" Would you be the family that looks like they talk with each other and enjoy it?

After pondering all of this, I went back to "checking out" the young looking priests. Jesus said that some are born eunuchs, some are made eunuchs, and some choose to be eunuchs. While priests are not exactly castrated, they do choose to live celibate lives. I could not even begin to imagine their back-stories!