January's P.O.T.Y. nominee

For those who missed the P.O.T.Y. briefing, it stands for Parent of the Year. Each month there will be one or two stories about parents displaying their inability to latch onto common sense as the adult in the parent/child relationship. This month's nominee is brought to you by Jim. In the future we will try to take pictures of the so called parent in action. We realize that we are not parents ourselves, however, we also realize that there are some things we don't have to be told. So without further adeu here is Jim's first nominee.

This first nominee for POTY Award happens to be the inspiration for this portion of the blog. Before I tell the actual story, I need to back pedal a little bit for some back story. I would say 6 months before this incident my mom and I went to this Mexican restaurant and there was a booth behind us that had 2 loud and hyper kids with a mom drinking a margarita. The staff seemed to know the kids by name along with the mother so one could call them “regulars”. After downing her big margarita she decided to take the kids home.

Now fast forward 6 months later where Hayley and I decided on a Friday night to go have dinner. It was very busy as it always is on a Friday night. While we were waiting, I happened to notice a booth with a mom, dad, and 3 kids waiting for their meals to arrive. It dawned on me they were all staring at the end of the booth where the salt or napkins would be. Eventually we figured out they were staring at an 8” DVD screen playing some movie while they were eating dinner, at a restaurant, not talking to each other. Even the parents were somehow intrigued by the flashing lights and sound on the DVD player.

After a brief eye rolling moment I looked at the woman because she was at the end of the table and realized it was the same woman from 6 months ago. I know without that 8” DVD player they could be forced to interact with each other, how difficult that must be.

A DVD player is fine on a five hour trek to somewhere in a car, but a restaurant! Really?! Really.