Code Blue

My mind was boggled and my ghast was flabbered twice at dinner this weekend.
To set the scene: Lovely Lady and I are feeling peckish. She's got a hankering for the mussels of the bar we go to too much.
It's dinner time on a weekend, so we suspect the place will be a shit show. It is, but we find a seat at the bar. We are seated between the loudest man who ever lived and a mind numbingly boring couple which consists of a pandering boyfriend and his fake wine snob girlfriend.

The LMWEL is like an infomercial pitch man, shitty movie dad and Dick Vitale rolled into one. He's there with what I assume is his son, just aggressively talking at him the entire time. Everything is shouted and everything is advice-y. Not good times.

The couple is just a typical lame-o couple. The girl orders some wine, the bartender brings her a glass. She tastes it. The 'tender asks her how she likes it and before rendering her verdict she needs to know what it is. He tells her it's some whatever white wine from Chile. Ooooh yeah I like it, she responds. Then she lectures her boyfriend on the quality of Chilean white wines, but the crappiness of Chilean reds. BLAH BLAH SNORE SNORE. If this girl had gotten a Franzia and he told her it was a Chilean white she would have said the same crap - she asked what it was before saying if she liked it. People are dumb. Wait, I'm supposed to show, not tell. I think I did both.

Unfortunately, enduring those two bookends was only the beginning of the human car crash.
Older couple, enter stage right. They look around for a seat, not finding one they manifest destiny eminent domain our corner of the bar. Reaching over an eating Lovely Lady to order and drink Chardonnays with ice. We have our food at this point. The slightly more manly half of the couple pulls up a chair for his blushing bride at the corner of a bar. Which, as we all know is NOT A SEAT. The place their icy goblets in such a place that whenever they want some they have to literally reach over Lovely Lady's muscular platter. Getting frustrated we dip out to make a phone call and take in the air (read: smoke a cigarette). We announce our intentions. The old fella didn't understand our announcement and asked Lovely Lady if we were leaving. She courteously responds with a definitive 'Nope.' Our 1/4 eaten food, personal effects and Nope were not enough to convince him, he turns to me - "You're NOT leaving?!?!"
No, sir, we are not (paraphrased).
At this point in the retelling I really want to admire this fellas stick-to-it-iveness. Kudos.
Within moments of getting outside we take a break from our bitching about the horrible people inside to notice he was, indeed, not dissuaded. He set up camp in Lovely Lady's seat. Baffling. Creepy, shitty, rude old dude is now talking and leaning and carrying on all over our dinners.
We come back in, he gets up, makes some corny joke and goes back to leaning on Lovely Lady's chair. We couldn't believe it. Lovely Lady was too creeped/grossed to finish her meal. We necessarily switched to drinking. Well, she did.

Those three sets of insanity finally made their way out and we joked and laughed with the bartenders at the sheer craziness that our night had been to this point. 'People these days...' and all that.

Then came in some younger couples. Mid 30s. The last couple to arrive comes in toting a baby in a baby carrier thing. Great, we'll have to deal with a shrieking baby. So they come in, great their friends and blow my mind. They plop their baby down - ON THE BAR. Baby on the bar. Where it stayed for the next hour and half while the parents joked and drank with their friends. Baby on the bar.
I of course texted my friends about the craziness going down. Funny responses: 'Body shots!' and the command 'Spin it!'

I am glad I am not horrified, but amused. People are crazy, rude and self centered. The least we can do is laugh at them. Not our place to straighten em out, but to laugh at them in the comfort of out-of-earshot and blogs.