I Believe We Are No Longer Welcome at the Hyatt

Dude. I know it's overused, but it's all I can think of and it's so fitting.

Christmas day. Great. Happy kids. They opened their meager presents with glee, never once complaining when it was over and done with in thirty minutes. We puttered around and played with toys and watched the Land Before Time waiting to leave for our reservations at the Hyatt. They serve an amazing Christmas Brunch. Champagne, unlimited shrimp, sashimi, fruit, endless salads, the full roast beast hot stations. Omelets, crepes. It's crazy. Crazy delicious.

I know it sounds insane, but we actually eat out a lot. The three gremlins are really good normally as long as Matt and I stay focused. We spent a lot of time removing them promptly and unkindly to the car without dessert if they didn't behave.

We eat. They're great. Matt takes them for a walk half way through the morning so that I can eat another huge plate of shrimp in blissful quietude. It was one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten.

We get to the best part, the huge dessert table. Ess wants cake. Gee wants ice cream. Cue just points with wide eyes. I get their treasures and we get settled at the table. Ess takes one bite of her cake smorgas board and dumps the whole thing into her lap and onto the floor. It was an accident. She was excited. I feel that way about cake myself.

I start to clean up the cakes. I pick up the pumpkin piece, but before I find the ooey, gooey chocolate piece, Matt sends me for a refill cake plate before Ess has a thermo nuclear meltdown thinking that she is not getting cake because she dropped her cake, despite my repeated assurances that she can have cake if she will just give me a freaking nanosecond to......grrrr whatever.

Cake replacement in place, all is well in our world. We stuff ourselves with desserts and then Matt heads out to pay with the baby while I perform a massive clean up operation on Ess and Gee. I survey. All is good. The table is a little messy, but all in all, everything is in tact. I tell them to go ahead and get down and run and find Daddy. Gee climbs down from the booth bench, tries to push passed me, and then gives up and climbs back up and across the bench behind me.

Suddenly, my hand is covered in chocolate. It's like I'm in slow motion. I look at my hand in horror, realize that the booth is covered in chocolate (upholstered, of course, no vinyl at the Hyatt). Wha? What's going on? Where is the chocolate coming from? I stand up. The back of my pants is covered in chocolate. My brain is not keeping up with the situation.

It's like I'm a character in a slow motion horror movie. Just as I catch on and look down at Gee, whose feet, shoes, even ankles are COVERED in chocolate, because of course, when he slid down off the booth he landed in that piece of ooey gooey chocolate cake that his sister dropped and I neglected to pick up. Just as I become fully cognizant of the situation, he takes off running. For his Daddy. Like I told him. ACROSS THE EFFING CARPETED HYATT RESTAURANT.

And then, I'm running and yelling at him, but it's too late. Every footstep is clearly there for all to see, ground in chocolate in the Hyatt's carpet. All my belated response accomplishes is to have him turn around and run back to me.

I am ashamed to admit that at this point, I panicked, picked him up and hightailed it out of there. I didn't stop until we were out of the beautiful Hyatt lobby and half way to the parking lot, where it took me an entire package of wet wipes to remove the chocolate from his feet (crocs, holes for chocolate seepage, bummer) and ankles. I wanted to throw the shoes away, but Matt wouldn't let me.

All through high school and for quite some time in college, I worked as a hostess at several restaurants. I know exactly what I would have said behind my back. What the F*** lady? You just get to come in here with your horrible kids and ruin the place? Who cares, right? You don't have to clean that nightmare up! Get a clue! You suck! Keep your filthy urchins at home, no one thinks they are cute! And maybe as a finishing touch: Stop breeding you clueless bitch.

It's okay, Hyatt staff of many, I said it to myself. Many, many times.

Dude. We usually do so well. Really.

Update #1: Matt and I went to the Hyatt for dinner last night with friends. I was nervous, but they didn't seem to recognize us, at least without the gremlins. I went and peeked at the booth and carpet. Clean. Impressive.

Update #2: Gee asks me every day if we can go and have a 'fancy lunch.' Um, no baby. Probably never. But, he takes after me, he knows a good thing when he sees it and a good thing is an endless dessert table, with an ice cream cooler.