The Playpen Principle

Soooo....yeah...that whole "not eating fried food embargo firmly back in place" thing...

I want to ask a question: What does "Family Friendly" actually mean?

I ask because we went out last night with Ma and my aunt, to a "Family Friendly" place. Assorted screaming hellions were running wild around the place, with a noise level fit to pierce all but the most hardened heavy metal eardrums. We'd booked a table, but when we got there, it had been given away.
"It'll be...erm...five minutes while we shift someone else and...erm...clean it up," said the charmless girl who waved a plastic-covered menu at us. "Have a drink at the bar," she said. We did - everyone but me had an "unlimited soft drink" which involved going beyond the vestibule and into the unbridled screeching chaos of the restaurant proper. I stayed to hold our place. A clueless creature with a clipboard came nosing past.
"Any news of our table?" I asked, clamly.
"No!" she told me, as if I'd asked if I could stab her repeatedly in the stomach. "No, no tables. You'll have to wait half an hour, that alright?"
"Not really," I said.
"Sir," she sneered, "Everybody's having to wait tonight."
"Five minutes ago, you told us it would be five minutes," I reminded her.
"But," she said, "everybody's waiting."
"And that's our fault...why?"
"Sir!" she sneered again. By which time, the other three had come back, with another girl in tow, who had wiped the baby-spittle off what, as it turned out, was our table.
"Ha!" I didn't actually say.
We went to sit down, and pulled out menus.
An entirely third young woman apparently devoid of hopes and dreams came to simultaneously dash all of ours.
"It'll be an hour and a half before you get food," she said, almost casually. A pair of tearaways chose that moment to bang into my chair as they tore away, hopped up on sugar and unreasoning childhood mentalness.
"An hour and a -?" said Ma, thinning her lips.
"Or there's buffet," she said.
"Four buffets," we all said in unison...

...without actually knowing what it was.

The buffet, as it turned out, was three types of fried chicken, one apparently boiled excressence of chicken, allegedly "smothered" in cheese and bacon...plus chips, and beans. The only way to not eat fried food on the bufet would have been to eat...
beans...
and more beans...
followed by beans. With beans on the side.
So yes. Another meal mainly comprising of fried stuff.

Meanwhile, a kid behind us took about three kid's breath and screeeeeeamed the place down. So I ask again - on what level are these places "Family Friendly"? The kids get hopped up on sugar and disgraceful excuses for food, until they get tired, or bored, or want more sugar and can't have it, and then they scream the place down. Friendly? Really? It's like eating in a playpen!


Got back on the bike today for a while, and no UberCommute tomorrow, so hopefully, I can get entirely back on track then. Do things look rosy and positive for Thursday's weigh-in? Not really - too many days off or excessive so far this week.