Behave yourself! Just behave yourself!

Friday night will be a head bangingly eventful night. Shy Boy’s parents are coming to town for the weekend, and my family will be having dinner with Shy Boy’s family. This won’t be the first time my family has met Shy Boy’s mother. She came for a visit several months ago and met up with my mother and sister to get to know each other and go shopping. They enjoyed each other’s company for the most part.  However, this will be the first time Shy Boy’s father will be up for a visit, so now the whole families each will get to know one another. I’m not particularly nervous. What I am is annoyed. Why? Because of family nudgey (complainy) behavior! This will be part of a birthday celebration for Shy Boy’s father while he is visiting town. He’s a huge fan of a particular Food Network show involving diners and dives. When he discovered a diner near Shy Boy’s apartment was featured on that particular show, he decided that’s the place he wants us all to meet up at. A month ago, Shy Boy and I went to that diner to check it out. We picked up a take-home menu as well. My family is not big on diners, but Shy Boy’s family loves diners. I thought the food was okay, not stellar just average, and a tad pricey for a diner. Still, I figured the birthday boy should have his way and get to try out the place. Maybe he’ll like it, and seeing as I’m already somewhat anti-diner I might be biased anyway. It’s certainly not a bad enough place that it would ruin a birthday celebration.

All was well, until my family took a look at the menu and that’s where the annoyingness comes in. I’m certain they will embarrass me. My mother doesn’t dig the prices of anything on the menu. Sure, the place is sort of snobby. I hate that they make you pay extra to share a dish with someone or to get extra fixings on a burger or the fact that they don’t allow substitutions. But all in all, my family is usually not that fussy about asking for substitutions or extras anyway. My mother is now telling me we ought to share something and do it quietly so no one will notice and charge us extra. Where is this ridiculous stinginess coming from?! It’s not that expensive an eatery, it’s just a tad overpriced. More importantly, Shy Boy’s mother is very astute and she’ll surely notice that one of us doesn’t have our own entrée! Then my mother thinks aloud maybe instead it’d be best if we just ate a little bit ahead of time and ordered something extremely small. One of the biggest things my mother hated that her own mother would do was to eat ahead of time before going to a restaurant. So why is she suddenly channeling my grandmother?!  Can’t you please please just order a small sandwich or salad and not make a ridiculous deal of this? Most likely, we’ll split the bill between the families. Each of us is a family of three anyway. Mind you, we have the money to go out for an evening like this. If it were a fancy restaurant, I don’t think this would be a problem. Just because it’s a place my mother and sister can’t agree about eating at, they have to make trouble.

 
I tried to vent my embarrassment over the issue with my sister. Not a great idea. The sister is not a huge fan of Shy Boy to begin with. She likes him, but she’ll jump at any chance behind his back to tell me about something extremely minor and stupid he does. She says it’s all his fault I’m in this predicament. She says Shy Boy’s father is so excited to try a diner featured on tv, he’s probably not aware that it’s an overpriced place. He should show his father the menu. From what I know of Shy Boy’s father, that wouldn’t stop him from wanting to try the place. He’s very interested in trying new places for himself and forming his own opinion. My sister says I should persuade Shy Boy to show his parents the menu and encourage another restaurant. See, she has no idea what it’s like to be in a guy’s mind. Sure if it were my sister or I trying out a new restaurant, we’d think about whether or not our mom might like to go there and probably she’d just ignore us and make her own decision anyway. Boys don’t think like that! They just do what they’re told. They don’t go into restaurants and sit down all genteelly wondering, “Goodness me. Shall I take my parents here?” Unless the restaurant is supremely awful, a guy is just not going to think about things like that. For crying out loud! I am so supportive of my sister when she has guy trouble or has trouble getting along with my mom and this is how she decides to behave?! Why do we have to make this such an ordeal?! All I’m asking is for you two to dress nice and act nice to Shy Boy’s parents. Why do we have to make adjustments that suit the two of you for no reason?!

Well, after Friday night is through, I’m supposed to go with Shy Boy on a road trip to his hometown for the weekend. It’s going to be a Shy Boy filled frenzy. Not only am I spending the night in a hotel room with him for the first time, but we’re going to meet up with his parents at some point and have an evening with them and Shy Boy’s brother and sister in-law. It will be a heck of a lot to write up here, but it’s sure to be head bangingly eventful. Please excuse my absence if it takes me awhile to write up about the weekend events. I’ll either be busy or going into hiding. You understand, I’m sure.