The Chinese Buffet Fiasco

Dude, you are about to look even more unhappy.

One summer, several of us were teaching early evening classes and we decided to have a standing 'date' to go out to eat afterwards.  It was usually just a couple of us, but one night there were about 10 of us who descended upon a local Chinese buffet.

Boo was 12 at the time, so an all-you-can-eat setup was pretty attractive.

It was a large restaurant and was pretty packed that night.  On one of his trips to the buffet, I heard a loud crash and said the parent's silent prayer: "Please, God, don't let it have been my kid."  My prayer was not answered that night.

Boo broke dishes pretty regularly at home, and my first concern was always whether or not he was okay.  The routine started as: (loud crash), "Are you okay?", "Yes, Mom, I'm okay", "Good, now clean it up."

Eventually, this was shortened to: (loud crash), "I'm okay, and I'm cleaning it up!"

Well, after the plate shattered at the buffet, the entire restaurant (of course) got dead quiet.  Everyone turned to Boo, who had that deer-in-the-headlights expression as he realized the eyes of the world were upon him.  He then hollered, "I'm oooh-kaaaay!"

On the bright side, at least it looked like he had been 'raised right' as he tried valiantly to take the broom and dustpan from the Chinese busboy (who apparently didn't speak much English), and kept saying, "My mom makes me clean up my own messes!"

Eventually, the plate fragments were cleaned up, Boo got another plate (or three) of cheap Chinese food, and everyone moved on with their meals.

As we finished out meals and were just talking, Boo got up from the table, walked to the wall where the mural was, and just stood there for a minute.  With his back to the mural.  There was a young couple sitting at a table nearby giving him an odd look.  He returned to our table and took his seat without a word.

One of the more 'dainty' Southern ladies at the table turned to him and nicely asked, "What were you doing over there?"

I prayed a second prayer for the night, that he wasn't doing what I suspected, or that he would at least lie about it.  Again, my prayers were not answered.

He looked her right in the eye and said, "My mom doesn't like me farting at the table, so I went over there to do it."

Not my proudest parenting moment.