Lesley's Art Blog: B-O-R-E-D

When your a kid, going to a restaurant can be really boring, especially when the company is comprised mainly of adults. The idea of a child being better seen than heard tends to apply and you end up forced to sit there amongst clinking cutlery and plates listening to the 'grownups' of the table go on about work and commitments and many other topics that have absolutely no relation to you. They may as well be speaking in another language, which can seem the case if your parents have jobs that tend to involve a completely ludicrous amount of jargon. The KPG's and the CPI's, investments in BMO's and SJ who apparently was seeing MR behind PK's back. The amount of acronyms the average work environment can come up with is actually quite startling, in fact I'm sure if this creative energy was funneled into something more constructive, productivity and idea generation would abound. Alas, I digress, my point was that adult conversation can be really really boring!

Even now I found myself stuck in the middle, no longer young enough to be amused by the romance of my knife and fork (yes I used to pretend they were married, with the smaller, entree set becoming their children) but I'm not yet old enough to have succumbed to the average pressures and annoyances of being an adult and working a job you either don't like or aren't particularly happy with. Not to mention I haven't accumulated enough life experience to be annoyed by most of the things around me that fail to meet my expectations or high standards.

So being at any table with adults, or even just people you can't relate to, can lead to mind numbing, comma inducing boredom! Thank goodness I managed to think on my feet, so when the prospect of yet another night spent moving my knife and fork around the table avoiding the spoon and keeping up with the smaller yet equally shiny silverware sent me into fits of narcolepsy, I decided I was going to occupy myself. This had to be done strategically, I couldn't appear to be 'acting up' neither could it seem like I was bored with the parents, insolent, or that I had disappeared. A parent can sense these things quite expertly, unless of course the conversation moves onto politics or problems faced by their respective industries, a case where they tend to spend the next hour one upping each other. I thus want to share with you, my lovely readers, ways in which you can occupy yourself discreetly and thus maybe keeping you from empaling yourself on your fork after having to 'actively' listen to topics that are as interesting to you as watching paint dry in a white room with no furniture.

1. If your in a pizza place, elect to help them fold takeaway boxes - not something for my older readers but great for you kids, it not only gets you away from the table but the parents are usually so enthused by your eagerness to be helpful and you are in 99% of cases offered dessert.

2. Ask for dough, this can work at any place that make's bread or pizza, while away the hours making cute little snowmen and unflattering effigies of your boss. If anyone asks, you can better concentrate on conversation when your hands are occupied

3. Make up stories about the people sitting around you on other tables, highly amusing and can entertain for hours - just be careful, if you start laughing at an image you've conjured about a particularly strange couple next to you be sure that the laughter matches the conversation of your friends. I have often placed giggles or comments in highly inappropriate topics of conversation due to lapses of concentration, not something I enjoy being remembered for.

4. Fold napkins, hard when dining at a more fancy place where linen has been chosen over more disposable materials, but still a great way to work on your origami skills.

5. Go to the 'bathroom'. In other words, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and go and find more interesting people to talk to instead. If asked why you took so long just say you got locked in. If you are somehow caught having a conversation with someone else, quickly imply that these are the people that saved your life and exit the situation quickly.

Good luck bloggers,

and may your meals be filled with interesting conversation