Happy Birthday To You

Emily and I were eating out at a restaurant the other night, having a nice dinner and enjoying our time alone. We both work full-time 40-hour a week jobs and it's always nice when we get an evening to ourselves, so we were at our table eating dinner and talking, when suddenly there was a commotion in another area of the restaurant. Several of the restaurant's servers had gathered around a table of diners, and the servers began to sing the "Happy Birthday" song (you know - "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Dear Whomever... yada yada me too"). So the servers start singing, loud and out of tune, and everyone in the restaurant could hear them and turned to watch. To anyone in the States who has ever visited a nice restaurant (and we're not talking Denny's here) in the last 3 decades, this is no surprise. I remember the first time I saw this happen - back in the mid-seventies I was having dinner with some friends, I believe that we were at a Marie Calendars restaurant, and the servers sang "Happy Birthday" to someone at another table. And my friends and I thought this was a great idea, funny and entertaining, not just for the birthday person but for everyone else as well. I don't know where this tradition started, but soon most restaurants were doing this. Many restaurants began to customize the song being sung, like singing "Happy Birthday" to the tune of the theme from The Flintstones, and the different variations have been quite entertaining for many years. But in the last few years I have been feeling that, after 30+ years of hearing "Happy Birthday" sung in restaurants, I don't find it quite so entertaining anymore. In fact, it's getting a bit annoying. Really, think about it... you're sitting in the restaurant with family/friends, talking and enjoying each other's company, and suddenly the waiters and waitresses begin singing loudly at a table near you, interrupting your meal/conversation. You have to stop talking and wait until they finish, especially if they are singing close to your table. And then several minutes later, they might do it again at another table because, lo and behold, there is more than one person at the restaurant celebrating their birthday on the same day. I've been in restaurants where the servers sang the same song to three different tables during the course of my meal, and I'm sure that in busy restaurants it happens more than that.

OK, I know this really isn't all that important in the grand scheme of life, but I like to lighten things up sometimes and not always blog about divorce or the death of a friend. And I'm really not being a crotchety old fart here, I just think that restaurants have been doing this for quite a while now, and it's become predictable and cliché. I think it's time for something new - after all, it's the 21st century... isn't there a better way for restaurants to entertain their guests? And I also think it's time for us to be able to eat our dinners in peace and quiet. Or at least Emily and I would like that.

They say it's your birthday... well it's my birthday too, yeah

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my spouse.