Color Me Crazy

It’s not like I go out to a sit down dinner at a restaurant often. Let’s face it, chicken nuggets, french fries and a playground are more on pace with my lifestyle these days. So, last night when I was out to dinner at the Macaroni Grill I smiled when I didn’t have to grab a high chair and dig through my bag for Matchbox cars. I didn’t silently hope that we were seated in a somewhat secluded area where my beautiful children and their constant chatter wouldn’t drive our neighboring tables out the door. No children to entertain, it was just dinner tonight.
We were seated and the cute little table was covered in paper with four crayons centered on top. I had to smile, “the boys would have loved that”. A whole table top of paper just for scribbling. Now, I know a number of restaurants do this. The waiter or waitress comes over to make their introduction and while they are rattling off the specials they dazzle you by writing their name upside down (right side up to you and me) and not just with one crayon, but TWO. The color combo affect takes over and suddenly you can’t wait to grab the crayons and start trying to write your name upside down with two crayons. It took a couple of tries…but I got it.
Now who thought of this slight phenomenon? Paper tablecloths? Because as I looked around, there were no children in the restaurant ( we were there kind of late), but every table had been drawn on. If I had some sort of impressive drawing talent I would have let loose, but I am “doodle challenged” so I had settle for stick figures and cool ways to write my name. As I looked around I didn’t feel so bad…the three women cackling next to us had only come up with swirlies. However, cool dude at the other table had managed a few cool animals and some geometric designs that definitely out-did my doodles. Oh well. But still, who thought of that? Is it because our culture is saturated in ADD and the restaurant managers know this so they give us something do while we wait impatiently for our food? Is it the hope that an undiscovered artist will find his inspiration just before dinner and someday claim that his whole career started with a paper tablecloth and some crayons? I am not for sure, but I didn’t pass by one used table where the crayons and tablecloth had not been used. It’s just too tempting to not write on that perfectly clean white paper. Kids or no kids, crayons before dinner kept me entertained as well as every other adult in the place:)