Women + Alcohol = Squealing

[CrescentFresh]

This nugget of sheer joy comes from today's "Dear Amy" of the Chicago Tribune:

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Dear Amy: My family and I enjoy dining out at some of the upscale restaurants in our city.

We select on the basis of cuisine and ambience, which we hope will be conducive to a pleasant dining experience.

Unfortunately, on several occasions our meal has been interrupted by raucous, shrill and spine-tingling shrieks from tables of women.

If we were patronizing bars I might understand, but not in a four-star establishment.

Management apologizes but does nothing else.

Other than stay home, is there a solution?

-- Disgusted

Dear Disgusted: I ran your letter past Phil Vettel, the Chicago Tribune's restaurant critic, who says that this issue is so familiar that his wife, Paula, came up with a formula: "The Noise Level of a table of women can be determined by multiplying the number of women by the amount of liquor each consumed (in ounces), divided by the sum of their ages. Thus, eight 22-year-old women consuming 4 ounces of alcohol each will have a Noise Factor of .181, whereas 10 32-year-old women drinking the same amount will have a Noise Factor of only .125."

In short: Women + Alcohol = Squealing.

If this behavior is bad enough that management sees fit to apologize for it, then you should expect a manager to step in and at least attempt to control it.

Instead of leveling an open-ended complaint to the manager, you should ask directly, "Could you please ask the women at that table to keep their voices down?"

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Someone better run this by Sietesma on Wednesday! (If they yell at us for posting, we should remove it. But seriously, why would they want to kill off buzz about their columnist?)

[Jacques Gastreaux]

At what NF level is the management supposed to step in?

[Banco]

I have the impression this problem has grown worse since the success of "Sex and the City."

[EdSz]

Based on my extensive research into the matter, I must disagree. The number of women factor cannot possibly be linear. 8 women squeal much more than twice the level of 4 women. The function is somewhat exponential! I suggest that a closer approximation is the following:

Factor = Ounces*1.5**Number of Women/ Average Age

Respectfully submitted,

-Ed

[hillvalley]

They also forgot to factor in the food consumption rate.

The food consumption rate directly affects the ratio of drinks to squeals, especially early in the evening and when the food includes carbs and/or dairy. A higher food consumption rate=a lower squeal level.

[Stretch]

This certainly can also be applied to men, if the function is modified a little.

It becomes: N(number of men)*L(amount of booze)/S(sum of dates' ages)=TBPq (boasting and preening quotient of given table)

Experienced this first hand a few weekends ago at an eatery in Darien, Ct -- now run, we found out after (although, in some ways, also during) the meal by one of the early rejects from "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." The cigar and Silver Oak crowd next to us guffawed their way through several rounds of "mine's bigger than yours" until one of them finally sunk the battleship with: "Yeah, you wanna go now? Sure. We can take the Citicorp jet."

[DonRocks]

This certainly can also be applied to men, if the function is modified a little.

It becomes: N(number of men)*L(amount of booze)/S(sum of dates' ages)=TBPq (boasting and preening quotient of given table)

Experienced this first hand a few weekends ago at an eatery in Darien, Ct  -- now run, we found out after (although, in some ways, also during) the meal by one of the early rejects from "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares." The cigar and Silver Oak crowd next to us guffawed their way through several rounds of "mine's bigger than yours" until one of them finally sunk the battleship with: "Yeah, you wanna go now? Sure. We can take the Citicorp jet."

Corollary: the average size of wine bottle owned is inversely proportional to penile magnitude. Ever met some lout bragging about all the magnums, jeroboams and Bathazars in his wine cellar? You guessed it: needle dick.

Going to open one of my MANY half-bottles,

Nebuchadnezzar

[Meaghan]

And the more secular the person, the lower the tone of squeal. Boozing angels are very high pitched.

[Banco]

Corollary:  the average size of wine bottle owned is inversely proportional to penile magnitude.  Ever met some lout bragging about all the magnums, jeroboams and Bathazars in his wine cellar?  You guessed it:  needle dick.

Going to open one of my MANY half-bottles,

Nebuchadnezzar

Well, MY collection is composed entirely of those little bottles of wine you get on airplanes.

[Nadya]

Don't even start.....don't even remind me....congressmen boozing up their starry-eyed interns packed six deep in the bar...squealing, stumbling, sodding moronettes...

[Spiral Stairs]

Well, MY collection is composed entirely of those little bottles of wine you get on airplanes.

MINE, however, is comprised entirely of the single wine molecules they serve at NaNoLab.

[shogun]

MINE, however, is comprised entirely of the single wine molecules they serve at NaNoLab.

That's nice and all, but in the Shogun Studio-Apartment, I quaff nothing but the business end of wine corks soaked in Voss water to infuse it with the sublime goodness of bottles past.

You know, no big deal.

[FunnyJohn]

"Decibels are handy for mental calculation, because adding them is easier than multiplying ratios. First, however, one has to be able to convert easily between ratios and decibels. The most obvious way is to memorize the logs of small primes, but there are a few other tricks that can help."

For more click me

Have a nice day!

Edited December 20, 2005 by FunnyJohn

[deangold]

Corollary:  the average size of wine bottle owned is inversely proportional to penile magnitude.  Ever met some lout bragging about all the magnums, jeroboams and Bathazars in his wine cellar?  You guessed it:  needle dick.

Going to open one of my MANY half-bottles,

Nebuchadnezzar

Hope its not corky!

[MissCindy]

At what NF level is the management supposed to step in?

A good question. This sort of situation really put a damper on a meal I had not so long ago at one of DC’s highly respected, sacred cow type restaurants. I didn’t complain at the time, so I won’t mention the name for fear of being stoned and not in the good way. We had the great misfortune to be unfortunately seated. On one side of us, a man and woman were having a surprisingly loud and painfully dull business discussion. On the other side, there was a familial gathering featuring a drunk, shrieking matriarch. The decibel level of each table increased throughout the evening. It is disappointing when loud mouthed, self important assholes significantly diminish the pleasure of a $600 dinner.

Is it really your responsibility to point out the painfully obvious to the staff? “Uh, excuse me, but the people seated near us are screaming. In fact, one of them is quite drunk and has decided to stand while screaming, as you can plainly see. My husband and I are having a difficult time speaking to one another in a normal tone of voice. The din is also preventing me from fully focusing on the food, which was, believe it or not, the main purpose of our visit. If I had wanted to get drunk and scream I would’ve stayed home and went to one of Baltimore’s many neighborhood bars where that type of behavior is often tolerated. Thank you.”