Going out to eat can be an interesting endeavor for my wife and I. Especially when we decide to go out to an all you can eat buffet. It seems more and more that people have completely forgotten what manners are, what it is to be polite. Everyone is self-absorbed in getting their food, to the point that they will cut people off, expect others to stop for them instead of stopping themselves. And then there is the matter of the children.
How many of you realize that most buffets have signs stating that small children are to be accompanied by an adult at all times at the buffet? Yet it never fails, I watch as small children run back and forth to the buffet, and in several cases, I have found myself almost tripped or ran into by a small child. Now, I am concerned that if a child runs into me, they may get hurt. But I am also concerned that if they run into me, they may knock my grumpy old ass down and I’ll get hurt. And then there will be the parent, who let their child run ramped around the buffet area that will think that its my fault, because their precious little angel would never do anything wrong. To be frank, I don’t need that shit, and I would be very supportive of any restaurant who bans children under 10 or 12 years of age from being in their restaurant during certain hours so people who have already raised their kids do not have to deal with these little brats and their parents.
My point. Friday night, around 6pm, my wife and I go to a buffet to eat. We normally don’t do this place at night, we generally wait until Sunday right before church gets out. Before the people with kids really start to show up. When we arrive, we find that there are two groups with teenage youth sports teams, and the place was sort of busy. No problem. The normal routine, everyone is locked in on themselves and no one else, so the routine is to act just as impolite as they do. But then we are introduced to the wild child, four or five years old, out with grandma and grandpa, who let him and his brother just run over top of them. Several instances of dodging the child, almost being knocked down and I sat down at the table and shook my head. You can’t say anything because people like this will make a major scene instead of doing what they should do, control their child.
“Maybe you should take your shirt off,” my wife comments and smiled. It didn’t hit me at first what she was saying, then I thought about it.
I carry concealed. I have a 9mm handgun that rides in a pancake holster on my hip when I’m out and about, and on this particular night I was wearing a cover shirt, a button up shirt that I wear over a t-shirt. this cover shirt is not only to give me a little added warmth, but will cover my handgun with very little restriction to my accessing it if need be. Removing the (cover) shirt would take me from concealed carry to open carry, which is legal in the State of Missouri without a permit.
So I removed my shirt as I got up to go get a refill. The trick is to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Like there was nothing different about how I was presenting myself. Though I knew that people would notice, and it would, in most cases, change the attitude of the room. People seem to become more polite around you when you’re carrying a gun. Strange thing about that. I’m no more dangerous than I was before I removed the shirt, but the gun immediately gets attention.
People stopped rushing to get in front of me. People stopped cutting me off. A couple of men even spoke to me in a friendly manner. Then what my wife and I had hoped for happened. Grandma suddenly decided that her little brat needed to be escorted when he was away from the table. It kept him from running blindly around the buffet. He stopped having near misses with people, and she kept him well away from me. It’s amazing how things change in a room when someone is openly wearing a gun and is not security or law enforcement.
This is not a normal routine for me. You really have to make me uncomfortable to get me to remove my cover shirt. The handgun is a tool to protect me from serious harm or being killed. How you use that tool to accomplish that can vary from situation to situation. But in most cases, if I’m out in public and carrying my handgun, you’ll never know.
Now, for you parents that have not learned how to control your kids, who believe in Gun Control, let me share with you the words from one of my favorite t-shirts. “I’ll control my guns … you control your kids.”
