Family Dinner Hold the Table Kiosk

Tonight's family dinner was at Chili's. They have added those little kiosks on the table where you can play trivia games, look at specials, and pay your bill. The youngest and I did not like it there, it seems intrusive. It took up space and because my oldest has to examine every gadget I think it kept us from having our usual crazy conversation.

Our waiter was excellent before our food came, but when the food came out it was not all there. I corrected the order, but it seemed to take forever for the rest of the food to get to the table, and I wanted my missing item to go with my main dish so I could not start eating. I complained to the boys about how attentive the waiter was before the food came, but how he disappeared when there was a problem. In a matter of seconds he was right beside me trying to make things all better. He became extremely attentive again, and seemed to know each little thing I was irritated about, even though I had not said a word to him.

The boys and I came to the conclusion that those little kiosks have hidden microphones in them so the kitchen can hear your conversations at the table. They are Big Brother for the restaurant businesses. Of course, that just led us down a completely different path in our conversation.

We were wondering what they had done to our food due to our comments. Then we wondered if they found tables that were having interesting conversations and listened in on those only. Since my youngest is completely disgusted by certain commercial currently running on television, we went in that direction. If the kitchen is listening in, could they get so engrossed in a table discussing the new KY Warming Jelly or Love Rub that they would burn several orders at one time?

While it was very convenient when it came to paying, I would rather not have the little device on my table. If there had been four of us at the table it really would have been in the way. Plus, I kept making my oldest use Purell since he kept picking up the stylus and clicking around on it. I kept reminding him of the swine flu.