I am standing in the IHop waiting to be seated. An IHop is not a dance hall nor a kiddie zoo with rabbits, for those who live outside the United States, Canada, Mexico or Guatemala. An IHOP is a restaurant famous for its high-calorie, salt-fat-sugar rich breakfasts. They also serve standard dinners and lunches. It is very popular (especially with old farts) because the servings are large, the service is usually fast and the prices are not high. It takes a really bad restaurant to screw up a breakfast of eggs and pancakes. I am rewarding the healing of my ankle with my first trip to the outside world. I admit that I am a fan of the International Crepe Passport breakfast. (Doesn't THAT sound sophisticated? -International Crepe Passport* Two eggs, two crispy bacon strips and two pork sausage links served with your choice of two crepes with fruit) I do not eat both sausage and bacon, my heart-attack-waiting-to-happen husband is happy to help with those. But I do order a side of hash browns which I split with him as well. I do not weigh 250 pounds and this meal, over 2,000 calories, is usually eaten about 9 to 10 AM and pretty much the only thing I eat all day except for snacking at dinner! Sinful to have such an abundance of food in a world where many are starving, I know. Sorry, but like most liberals I carry my guilt to the food table.
Anyway, while I am standing waiting for the hostess, I notice a really sweet little 4-year-old girl in front of me with a 250 pound mom carrying a new baby. The little girl is focusing intently on something in her hands. The hostess returns and takes the mom to a booth. The little girl remains standing in front of me. I tap her on the shoulder and tell her that her mother is down the way. The girl looks up at me and I see she has been intently focusing on an IPhone. (IHop, IPhone?) She is moving images and links across the screen like an expert. She looks back down and continues her screen activities.
The mother gets seated a short distance away and gets the baby in a high-chair and then turns back to the little girl and calls her. The girl does glance up, has heard, but still does not comprehend.
The hostess returns to seat us and I point to the mother as I place my hand on the little girl's shoulder once more before we begin to scoot around her. The little girls looks up at me again with clear blue eyes and then back to the phone. We walk around her and head to our booth and I will be darned but she follows us not looking up at all! Clearly she is joining us for breakfast.
It actually takes some effort on the part of the mother and me to convince the little girl that she is at the wrong booth. Actually the effort is on getting through the fog of technology.
I hate these technological babysitters...they are a drug! Thank goodness they were not crossing the street and it is amazing they made it across the parking lot.
(For a more enlightening day in the fog...go here.)
a 4-year-old using an iPhone? i think she's missing a lot :(
ReplyDeleteWow. I felt mildly guilty at letting Sesame Street babysit on occasion. This is just all sorts of wrong.
ReplyDeleteiShrug
Ye Gods! I did let my oldest watch Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman with me when he was a toddler, that's my guilty secret. I was hooked. That little gal is going to get run over or worse with her little nose up a phone. I have to admit though my youngest grandgirl could turn on my PC and find PBS kids and start up a game at 3 years old. I only feel sort of guilty but then who will run my PC for me when I'm an oldie but goodie, or older anyway.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you are out and about again, but the way you celebrate is beyond me. A bottle of champagne and some oysters, would they have been at all preferable?
ReplyDeleteEspecially as you had your husband close by.
As for the kid, I blame mum. What's a 4-yr-old doing with an iphone?
You may take me for an old fart, I simply don't understand the world any more. (sits shaking her head and dribbling into her hot milk)
I am glad you are healing of your ankle with a trip to the outside world. Enjoy your time!
ReplyDeleteAt least the kid wasn't driving a car yet.
ReplyDeleteiMac... iPhone.. iHop. Yes there is a logic here. And that was some sort of zombie-child, maybe. Surely they won't all turn out like this, right?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should have let her sit with you, plied her with hash browns (food of the gods) and taught her some knock-knock jokes. Her mother might have been grateful.
It saddens me that parents put technology into children's hands without any ground rules or limitations. As a technology journalist, this is a perfect example of how we, as a society, have gotten this tech thing wrong: If we can't get our kids off to the right start, then it's all downhill from there.
ReplyDeleteIHOP figured prominently in my childhood, even though we don't have any in Canada. It was a mid-trip tradition in Albany every time we went down to New York to visit my aunt and uncle. I can still feel what it felt like to walk in out of the cold Adirondack winter. Didn't have any screens then...just the warm hand of my mom.
So glad you are out not just attempting to stand on the dock. Unfortunately the I-Hope food always makes me ill, so I have to resort to other sources of high fat, sugar, carbs, and too much food breakfasts.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE IHOP pancakes with butter pecan syrup, which I usually have with an order of bacon. I never wonder how many calories are in it...
ReplyDeleteLOL...though maybe I should.
That poor child.
We sure aren't doing our kids any favors, are we?
ReplyDeleteSome parents will do anything to get their kids to quiet down... I never gave the kids any important, expensive things to play with.
ReplyDeleteI do remember some long distance dialing charges by a sneaky little button pusher before I caught up to my 4 yr old tho... on the land line.
iphones have pics n games too-
Just... not... right.
ReplyDeleteI will say, however, that IHOP is vastly underrated. And I'll eat any bacon or sausage you or your husband leave behind.
That is a fabulous autumn shot!
ReplyDeleteI love it that young kids are masters of technology, but they still need to be kids and connect with the world!
Some day, someone's going to tell me what the difference is between 'crisp' and 'crispy'.
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