I have no kids. Oh, I like kids and I have almost no issues with kids, actually - I just don't have any of my own. Am I not going to have any ever? Am I shooting blanks? How the hell do I know? The only thing I'm sure of is that kids are irreversible, which really makes them unique thing in today's day and age. I mean you can get out of marriage, evade taxes, duck many felony charges (with a greasy enough lawyer), and stave off death for years - even tattoos can be removed. Even if a kid is put up for adoption, they can always find you, given the information stores of the 'net; hardly reversible. So, as near as I can tell, kids and death are the last irreversible decisions. Irreversible decisions make my feet itch.

And kids are fine. People are obviously still having a lot of them because, as I've discovered over the last few years, I can't have a meal in public without sharing an hour of my life with someone else's children. See, it's not the kids I blame for this either. Kids are prone to test their boundaries whenever possible - it's what they do for a living - and they should be testing them. It's the only way to learn right from wrong, really. How often do you see a parent tell a child "Don't touch the hot stove" only to see the kid continue to try to touch it? If the kid doesn't succeed, great, but if the kid gets a finger on the stove, viola! there's pain and a new boundary was set: the kid won't be touching the stove again and he'll probably believe the parent next time there's a no. I, of course, had to burn at least seven fingers before I believed the stove was always hot when it was on... I blame the scientific process for that.

OK, so what's the point to this? Parent suck, lately. Not all of them to be sure, but the number is approaching 40% at least. And even if it wasn't that high, it doesn't matter. Take a restaurant with 100 people in it. Say 40% of the people in there are families with two kids each, which means there's ten families (two parents, two kids) in with the other 60 people. If one of the families has a pair of monster children, that the parents don't discipline, then the whole room is shot. The kids scream, cry, beg for balloons, throw food, and run around to other tables with a crying-induced nasal problem, while the other 18 kids behave - the whole experience is done at this point. Now picture that it's a Sunday at a local Ruby Tuesday's and all ten of the families have screaming, crying, begging for balloon, food throwing, and running children with crying-induced nasal problems. You'll be witness to my luncheon experience yesterday, which caused me to dream up a new idea today.

Well, you could tell certain people that they aren't allowed to procreate without a permit. I've said it before, and if I ever run for political office, I'll mention it again. I find it to be criminal that I can't dig a hole in my yard without a permit, yet I can go create another human just because I produce sperm and forgot a condom. Criminal. And the added fact that I pay just about double the taxes of a person with kids is just discrimination, plain and simple. But ok - that's government related, and well beyond my control. Short term fix? Start having "Non-Kids" dining, much like many places had "Non-Smoking" areas a few years ago, before most went entirely smoke-free.

Sounds crazy? Let me tell you something. All my single readers just went "OoOOooooOO". All of my married readers, that don't have kids [yet], just went "oOOooOOOo". The only people that just went "What the fuck?!" are the readers that have kids. Let me say this to them: all of my friends that are also parents have raised their kids "right". Not one of them have ever let a situation like the one above ever happen. If their kids act up, they take them for a walk, away from the other people eating. I've seen one such a couple miss a lot of different things - including wedding ceremonies - because their child was acting up and they didn't want to ruin the time for everyone else. My friends are all great parents. And to them I say this, as well: If you got a free night, with a babysitter at home, and you went out for a quiet dinner somewhere... would you want to listen to these monster children terrorizing a restaurant on your only night "off"? Yeah, I didn't think so.

I leave it in the hands of the New York City restaurant owners. They were smart enough to start offering "tobacco-infused" meals after the government issued a ban on all smoking in all restaurants. Once they realize that there's a problem with the lil monsters, in the family type restaurants, they'll have the balls to start "Children-Free Zones". And once NYC does it, LA will follow. After that, it'll spread to everywhere else by 2005.

At least my burger was good...