Clink. Cough. Chomp. Slurp.

I don't know why. Maybe it's the way I was raised. But noises at the dinner table really bother me.

I seem to be the table warden of the family, telling the kids to

-take reasonable bites
-don't wipe your hands on your clothes
-excuse yourself to blow your nose
-don't pound your plate with a knife or fork
-don't slurp your drink
-take one bite of your food and then put the rest down (like with grilled cheese) instead of sitting there and picking bites off and playing with it
-say please instead of reaching across people and the table for something
-no singing
-no drawing
-no reading
-no tv
-no games
-no yelling
-don't spill....

Gosh, sounds like dinner at my place isn't fun.

The one thing that gets on Man's nerves is elbows on the table. And that's the one thing I'm always getting caught at. I guess it's only fair for me to get caught at something.

Not eating as a family is by far the exception and usually happens if a parent is sick or I'm making surprise dinner -- which means that even I'm surprised to find what I come up with that night. (this dinner is more common toward the end of the month. you'd be amazed what you can come up with involving a single chicken thigh, 3 different bags of frozen veggies with only 1/2 cup left in each, a handful of cheese, 4 different kinds of pasta, and your last cans of mushrooms and tomato paste) And yet we manage to struggle with some appalling prandial atrocities.

Oh well. At least they're statistically less likely to do drugs when they get older, right? Who cares about a slurp in the face of them odds?