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Most of the time, I can glide along comfortably with being over
50. My mother's voice doesn't come out of my mouth ("I can't understand a
word in that song!"). I stifle a sigh when the supermarket checker hits
"cashier has bypassed age validation" on my bottle of cabernet
sauvignon.
I try to consider age a porous membrane of ideas, but once in a
while, the barrier turns to brick. I run up against something that I just don't
get.
The latest baffling phenomenon has been developing for some years
but has come to a head with the latest young dining generation: noisy
restaurants. "Noisy" isn't really the word for some I've been in that
were like sticking my head in a jet engine.
Oh, geez, it sounds like I'm ready for a walker and pureed peas.
I'm not, really. That cashier only dumped the age validation because I wasn't
wearing makeup that day. Really.
Well, let me explain.
My husband and I recently made our first visit to a Trendy
Triangle Restaurant. I will not name it to protect the guilty (possibly me, if I
end up looking like a geezer). At 6:30 p.m., the room was packed. The TTR
doesn't take reservations. The person keeping the name list said it was because
people don't show up for them. OK - small place, down economy, don't want empty
tables, I understand that.
The volume in the restaurant, though, was unbelievable. It was
sports-bar-during-the-Duke-Carolina-game noise. It was
renovators-jackhammering-my-concrete-bathroom-floor noise. It was
"drivers, start your engines" noise. I'm sure there was background
music, but I have no idea if it was Bach or Beyonce.
When we were seated and got our food, it was good, but all we
could think about was how quickly we could get out of there. Which was pretty
quick, because it was so hard to have a conversation, though the people yelling
around us (who seemed to be mostly in their 30s) didn't seem to mind.
Apparently, one person's teeth-cracking din is another's air of
excitement. A recent Wall Street Journal article placed the responsibility for
restaurant noise on younger diners and the desire for less formal,
cost-conscious dining.
The article says that upscale restaurants have eschewed plush
chairs, carpeting, even tablecloths at a faster pace since the recession began.
Owners told the Journal that they did so to create an exciting, casual ambiance
- and it saves money, too.
Many restaurateurs don't consult acoustical engineers because of
the cost, and they think customers like the noise because it makes them feel
they're in a happening place.
Owners claim that the only complaints they get about noise come
from older diners. (And we're the ones who are supposed to need hearing aids.)
Restaurant noise also prevents me from indulging a favorite
dining hobby: eavesdropping. My husband and I dined at a Less Trendy Triangle
Restaurant recently, where the quiet ambience treats us like adults and the
eavesdropping possibilities rarely disappoint.
It was at this restaurant that we heard one of the funniest
Valentine's Day conversations ever, between a guy and the younger woman he was
attempting to snow. It was deep by the time he got through, too. Nothing says
"lovin'" like talking about the ex-wife while out with someone else.
I was glad to find an explanation for the discomfort I felt in
the TTR. The Wall Street Journal says that low-frequency sounds (a thumping
bass or the roar of conversation) are annoying because they tap into our
primitive fears. Primitive man viewed such sounds as threats: Think about
thunder or a rumbling volcano.
So, I'm not old. I just have sense enough to get in out of the
rain.
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