This is a speech my dad gives anytime he, my sister, and I are in a restaurant. It generally happens immediately after one of the following (or possibly several in conjunction):
–Someone shoots a straw wrapper across the table.
–I knock over a beverage.
–My sister snorts milk out her nose.
–Food is mindlessly shoved around a plate until it spills onto the table or splashes onto clothing.
–Jams/sugar packets are stacked up before tumbling down all over the table.
–Little triangular paper footballs are accidentally flicked into an adjacent booth.
–There is excessively loud shrieking/laughing.
The speech goes something like this...
"Girls, girls, girls. [Lots of disheartened head-shaking here.] When you were little, and we were out at a family dinner, and one of you would end the evening jumping up and down on the booth, dancing with your dress lifted above your head, I would daydream of the day we could go out for a nice dinner, and there would be no ugly incidents. Just a pleasant, non-embarrasing meal. It's been decades. I am still waiting for that dinner."
Often, this speech is greeted with a loud belch.
While the three of us were in Germany this summer, my sister pointed out that such a dinner had actually happened at one point. This did not satisfy my father.
"It's a perennial dream."
