More than your fair share

When my son was small, I used to get a lot of phone calls from his school teachers. He talked too much in class. He talked when they were supposed to be silent reading. He talked when standing in line. He talked while other students were talking. He talked while the teacher was talking. And even though the things he talked about were generally on-topic and sometimes very funny, he was disrupting the learning process for the other students. “I have only so much time for each lesson and for each student,” some young teacher would say to me. “And he’s a wonderful boy. He’s just using up more than his fair share.”

Obviously, the boy needed more attention and another outlet (and probably a little more challenging work to do). We addressed those problems. He’s slightly less disruptive now.

I was thinking about this the other night. At the restaurant. When I had four tables of guests to tend to, and one of those tables was using up more than their fair share of my time and causing the other tables to get less attention than they deserved. I wanted to tell them what I told my son:

“The teacher (server) is in the classroom (restaurant) to teach you new things (take your order) and help you when you don’t understand (bring you refills and Tabasco sauce that you forgot to ask for). The problem is that you are not the only student (guest) in the classroom (my section). There are, in fact, other students (customers) who want the same thing you do. Sadly, your teacher (server) is a mere mortal and is unable to bend the time/space continuum in such a manner as to allow her to spend as much time with each student (dumbass) as some would like. Out of fairness to other students (more patient guests than yourself), it’s important that you allow the others a turn to speak and ask for help. The only other option is for you to get a private tutor (servant) who could tend to your every need, but we both know that is much too expensive. What I’m trying to say here is, you aren’t the most important person in the world, you’re not entitled to more than the next guy, so hold on, shut up and wait your turn.”

Of course I didn’t say that last part to the kid, but I definitely wanted to tell it to my table the other night. Of course I was far too busy running after yet more jelly (oh and could we get some to go boxes even though we’re still stuffing our faces full of food that is falling out because we’re too impatient to even wait to finish chewing before we speak, oh and I’d like to switch to coffee now even though you just brought me a fourth Coke, and when you come back by to ask that other table if they might need anything . . . actually, don’t bother asking that table, I’m sure they’re fine, but when you come back I’m sure we’ll have thought up something else, so hurry!), so I didn’t have time to tell them that I didn’t have time for their nonsense (bullshit).

And in the end, they tipped me $6 on a $79 check. So yeah, they definitely couldn't afford their own private servant.