Grandchildren…you gotta love ‘em. First, their yours and second they go home with their parents after a visit. But yours or not, it rankles a tad, when you take them to a restaurant. Not because they climb on seats and look into the booth next to yours. Not because reason and bribery and threats won’t guarantee tranquility. Not because they’ll run in the aisles like a jail break. And not because whatever you order for them has a two-bite maximum. And after those two bites, they become choristers of alternating refrains…When are we going?…Can’t we go home now?…This is boring.

End-of-their-tether parents will hold out dessert to appease their impatience. And if timed so their ice cream and the adults orders come simultaneously (an experienced waiter has already brought the kids’ food 30 seconds after taking the order), there is a slight chance the adults can get mid-meal before the choristers start in again.

But still that’s not the worst of it. That falls to their perversity in not being able to share the same meal. Chicken fingers and fries won’t do for both, nor mac and cheese nor a hamburger and fries. So one meal that would have but four bites missing, when cleared, becomes two, nearly pristine, meals with two bites missing from each.

Undoubtedly the fault’s ours, taking them where they didn’t want to go in the first place.