If only they came with mute buttons

There’s a little keychain gadget you can buy on the Internet that will turn off almost any TV set. If only they made one for turning off kids. I don’t know when parents decided it was charming to subject strangers to indiscriminate blasts of decibels from their progeny, but I’m getting tired of kids who are louder than 747s.

Rich and I were at Buffalo Wild Wings on Saturday for lunch. Granted, BWW isn’t exactly an intimate bistro, but our conversation was stopped dead several times by shrieks from a table of kids six feet away. Saturday night, we were at a Chinese buffet. The evening was punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from a couple of kindergarteners. I hope the parents were embarrassed when the entire restaurant fell silent and glared.

Kids are exuberant; I know. I also know there is “inside voice,” “outside voice” and “banshee howl that is best reserved for kidnappings and grizzly bear attacks.” Last summer, I regularly heard blood-curdling screams from the neighboring condo complex – often after dark when the little monsters should have been in their jammies. They were playing in the pool. If I hadn’t known that, I would have called 911.

Yeah, I know. I don’t have kids. But I once was a kid and was not allowed to behave like that. Parents, if people stare at you in public when your kid decides it’s time for a hollerfest, they’re too loud. When strangers can’t tell the difference between a playful shout of glee and a scream that says, “I’m being eaten by fire ants,” it’s time to have a sit-down with little Jason or Ashley.

And when they finally do make a gadget that mutes a screeching kid, don’t blame me when I use it on your little brat.