AINE O’CONNOR

The dad’s-eye view of waiters is a dim one

There are two sides to every story. At least. Father and Girlchild went out to dinner. After the event, an exasperated Father announced that he was going to have to be the one sitting facing outwards in future. Why? Huff. Puff. Tsk. ”I don’t like when I can’t see what’s going on behind me.”

And the waiter was “a cheeky bleeping smart-arse.” Huff. Puff. Tsk. The Girlchild smirked. Her mother (aka I) laughed, for the Girlchild had already told me her side of the story and it had begun with: “Dad was being such a weirdo.” The waiter, in her version of events, was not cheeky, but gorgeous. A gorgeous young man who, it seems, might have noticed certain charms in the Girlchild, who, like most teenage girls with their expertly applied make up — if only contouring was an exam subject — looks substantially older than her 15 years.

He wasn’t a cheeky bleeping smart-arse then? “No! He was nice, he was really pretty and he gave us a discount. Dad was being a total weirdo.”

When confronted with the suggestion that perhaps he had been slightly weirded out by the waiter’s awareness that Daddy’s Little Girl is no longer either a Little Girl or Daddy’s, Daddy had to concede that, yes, he finds it all horrifying. “As she gets older I feel more and more protective.”

The Girlchild smirked again. “I told you he was being a weirdo.” And yes, it is kind of weird. Though clearly my long schooling of the Boychild in the fact that all wimmin except Mammy are tramps is entirely normal and natural.

Happy Father’s Day, especially to fathers of teenage girls.